
SWA ND E R. 





fc'W?¥&££ -"* ■ :3fe& 4 - \ - . 





THE 



Reformed Church. 



A Sketch of its History, together with a 
Statement of its Doctrines, Govern- 
ment, Cultus and Customs. 



THE LIBRARY 
OF CONGRESS 

WASHINGTON 



By Rev. J. I, Swander, D. D. 



WAY 22 1889a* 



PRESS REFORMED PUBLISHING CO., 
DAYTON, OHIO. 




Copyright by Reformed Publishing Co., 1889. 



PREFACE. 



This book has been prepared at the 
request of the Reformed Publishing" Company, 
from whose press it now goes forth upon its 
mission. That mission is to supply some 
further information in a popular way concern- 
ing the several branches of the general subject 
of which it treats. The book is compactly 
written. Its sketches and statements are neces- 
sarily brief, and yet as full and complete as 
limited space would allow in a volume of such 
character and purpose. It will be of value to 
all who are sufficiently interested in the trunk- 
line of Protestant history to wish for a further 
acquaintance with the origin, growth, doc- 
trines, government, cultus and customs of the 
Reformed Church. 

In the preparation of the following pages, the 
writer has made free use of all the means and 
material at his command. The greatest war- 
ranted liberty was taken in the use of Reformed 
literature. As it looked down upon him from 
the shelves of his limited library, it seemed to 
send the echoes of its silent whisperings into 
his ears: "All things are yours." Some of the 

3 



iv 



Preface. 



sources of such information are duly credited in 
the body of the work: the others are sincerely 
acknowledged in this preface. Believing him- 
self fully warranted in the exercise of this free- 
dom, he offers no apology, but many hearty 
thanks for such indispensable assistance. It is 
hoped that the above statement will be satisfac- 
tory, inasmuch as whatever knowledge of the 
truth the writer may possess has reached him 
through the broader attainments of others. 
Whatever of merit the book may have is 
largely due to them. The defects are his own. 

The fullest freedom has been taken, not only 
with the truths expressed, but also with the 
language itself contained in the adopted ordi- 
nances of the Church. The Catechism, Direct- 
ory of Worship and the Constitution have been 
drawn upon for the most valuable material and 
the best language the book contains. Hoping 
that it may be owned and blessed by the great 
Head of the Church to the edification of his 
people and the glory of his name, the little vol- 
ume is now sent forth as the fruit of much 
anxiety and toil in the writer's performance of a 
task assigned him by others. J. I. S. 

Fremont, Ohio. 



CONTENTS. 



Chapter I. — History. 

PAGE 



The Keforaied Name 9 

The Land of its Birth 11 

Ulric Zwingli 13 

The Beginning of the Reformation 14 

The Reformed Standard of Truth 15 

The Renovation Needed 18 

Martin Luther 21 

The Sacramentarian Controversy : 22 

John Calvin 23 

Philip Melancthon 25 

An Unsatisfactory Truce 27 

The Palatinate 29 

Frederick III 29 

Ursinus and Olevianus 31 

The Reformed Symbol of Faith 32 

War Upon the Catechism 33 

The Branching Period 34 

The Anglican Branch 35 

The Scottish Branch 37 

Religious Parasites 38 

The Principle of Perpetuity 40 

Truth Differently Apprehended . 41 

The Reformed Church of Holland 44 

The Reformed Churches in Germany 46 

Our Pilgrim Fathers 50 

The Reformed Church in America 52 

The Reformed Church in the United States 54 

First Congregations Organized in this Country 55 

The First Reformed Synod 56 

5 



vi 



Contents. 



PAGE 

The Eevolutionary "War 57 

After the War 58 

The Dawning of a New Period 59 

The Synod of Ohio 60 

Other Institutions 61 

Periodicals . 62 

Statistical Summary 63 

Present Outlook 63 

The Two Reformed Churches in this Country 64 



Chapter II. — Doctrine. 

The Heidelberg Catechism 67 

Xo Peculiar Doctrines 68 

Christianity not Based upon Doctrine 68 

Xo New Doctrine 69 

The Apostles' Creed 70 

Christ Central in the System 71 

Saved by Sovereign Grace. . 73 

Positively Protestant 75 

Is This Grace Irresistible ? 77 

"The Holy Catholic Church," 78 

The Word of Preaching 79 

The Ordained Ministry 80 

The Gospel Sermon 82 

The Pulpit Restored 82 

The Holv Sacraments 83 

The Sacrament of Baptism 87 

The Form or Manner of Baptism 88 

Infant Baptism 89 

The Lord's Supper 92 

The Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven 98 

Regeneration : Conversion 100 



Contents. vii 

PAGE 

Experimental Religion. 102 

The Law of God 103 

Prayer 104 



Chapter III. — Government. 

Church Government in General 105 

The Presbyterial Order 106 

The Constitution 108 

Members of the Church 109 

The Congregation 110 

Church Officers Ill 

Ministers of the Word Ill 

Professors of Theology 113 

Eiders and Deacons s 114 

Licentiates , 115 

Church Assemblies 117 

The Consistory .118 

The Spiritual Council 118 

Classis 119 

The Synod 121 

General Synod 122 

Discipline 123 



Chapter IV. — Cultus and Customs, 

The True Idea and Meaning of Cultus 127 

Private Devotion 128 

Family Religion 129 

The Sunday-School 130 

Catechetical Instruction 131 

Confirmation 133 

Public Worship 135 



viii 



Contents. 



PAGE 



Festival Days 136 

The Prayer-Meeting 137 

Sacramental Rules and Customs 137 

Christian Burial 139 

Good Works 140 

Women's Missionary Societies 141 

Temperance 143 

Customs not Followed 145 

Fraternal Relations 150 

Prayers for the Family 153 

Sunday Morning 153 

Sunday Evening 155 

Week Day Morning 156 

Week Day Evening 158 

A Prayer for the Sick 159 

A Prayer for a Sick Child 159 

Prayer for a Departing Soul 160 

Form of — A Petition to Organize a Congregation 161 

Call to a Minister 161 

" Constitution of a Church 162 

" Dismission of a Church Member 165 

" Constitution of Joint Consistory 166 

" Sunday-School Constitution 168 

" Women's Missionary Society 169 

" Mission Band 171 



CHAPTER I. 



HISTORY. 



The Reformed Name. 



^T^HE Church was before the Reformation. 



Otherwise, there could have been no such 



epochal period in history. In, and after 
the Reformation the Church remained what it 
ever had been as to its identity and inalienable 
properties, and through that great movement 
became what it had not yet been, and what it 
needed to be — the church reformed. As the 
Reformation moved forward the logic of history 
required that this Heavenly Institution, reform- 
ed from its heresies in doctrine and renovated 
from its corruptions in practice, should be called 
the Reformed Church. The name was not 
applied as from without, but grew forth as a 
fruit of the forces at work in the Church's own 
bosom. The title was just as legitimate in its 
birth as it is rich in its significance and appro- 
priate in its service. There was no other name 




9 



10 



The Reformed Church. 



under heaven by which it could have been 
properly called. No other name would have 
expressed its essential catholicity, its attitude 
toward the radical and yet conservative move- 
ment through which it had passed, and the 
unbroken succession of its historic onflow down 
the aisle of the ages. 

The Reformed name was for a little while, 
not only the battle-cry, but also the banner- 
title of all Protestantism. But as different 
modes of theological thought began to gather 
strength and prevail in certain schools, giving 
rise to divergent doctrinal tendencies, and as 
various types of national life began to stamp 
themselves upon the plastic substance of the 
Reformed faith, the natural and inevitable result 
was a shooting out in different branches. 
These respectively took their names, not from 
Paul, Apollos or Cephas, but from either some 
party leader, from the respective province in 
which the principles of the Reformation began 
to spread, from a favorite theory of church gov- 
ernment or from the emphasis placed by others 
upon the mere mode of administering a sacra- 
ment. 

As a consequence of such denominational or 



The Land of its Birth. 



sectarian tendencies, as mentioned in the fore- 
going paragraph, that part of the Reformation 
in whose constitution there were no prevailing, 
eccentric forces with which to shoot itself away 
from the stem into a branch was left with no 
other mission than to perpetuate the life of the 
root along the grand central trunk line of 
Protestant history. The Reformed Church, 
therefore, stands upon the records of history, 
not only as the original root and mother of all 
legitimate Protestantism, but also, though from 
no fault of its own, as a branch in the great 
Protestant tree, and a sister in the growing 
Protestant family. Under such proper view of 
the subject, this distinct ecclesiastical body 
appears less remote from Catholic unity and less 
sectarian in contrast with others, even as it hath 
by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than 
they. 

The Land of its Birth. 

The Reformation was started in Switzerland. 
That staid and sturdy race which had rocked 
the cradle of William Tell, and dug the grave 
of the tyrant, Gessler, was wisely called by 
Providence when the fullness of the time had 
come to begin the disenthrallment of the Church. 



12 



The Reformed Church. 



Both the geographical position of Switzerland, 
and the political liberty breathed by her inde- 
pendent cantons were elements of fitness for the 
part that God had ordained the little republic 
to play in the central theater of the sixteenth 
century. The position was one which could 
most easily admit of and command the aid of 
all the co-operative agencies and elements in 
the adjacent territory and throughout the con- 
tinent of Europe. Among the rockribbed 
monarchies and despotisms of Church and 
State, which then enslaved the nations of the 
world and the consciences of men, Switzer- 
land still remained like an oasis of freedom in a 
boundless desert of spiritual and political steril- 
ity. Stalwart in their independence, simple in 
their habits and susceptible of mental and moral 
cultivation, the Swiss peasantry furnished the 
ground of that living rapport with all the rest- 
less people of adjacent countries, from which 
the Reformation received additional guarantees 
of its success as a religious movement, as well 
as the required conditions of that mighty 
impulse which after four centuries of beneficent 
results, is still sending its blessed influences with 
the onflow of the world's great history to min- 



Ulric Zwingli. 



gle their heavenly rays with the coming splen- 
dor of the millennial morn. 

Ulric Zwingli, 

The Reformation was neither the work of one 
man nor of many, but of the Holy Ghost, who 
wrought mightily through the Reformers in 
tearing down the strongholds of long established 
error. Among the agents through which God 
was thus pleased to glorify his name in the 
renovation and reinvestment of his Church 
were such men as Wittenbach, CEcolampadius, 
Leo Juda, Capito, Farell, Myconius, Bullin- 
ger, Bucer, Luther, Calvin and Zwingli. 
The most prominent of these, excepting Luther 
in Germany and Calvin in France, was Ulric 
Zwingli. This great Reformer was born in the 
village of Wildhaus, in the county of Tokenburg. 
now included in the canton of St. Gall, on the 
first of January 1484, and died October nth, 
153 1, on the bloody battle 'field of Cappel, as 
chaplain of the Protestant army which had 
marched forth to drive back the Roman Catho- 
lic cohorts that had dared to encroach upon the 
liberty wherewith Christ was about to make his 
people free from their yoke of bondage. Rear- 



The Reformed Church. 



ed in a pious family, and placed at an early 
age under the plastic hand of that godly man, 
Thomas Wittenbach, he was well prepared by 
the Divine Founder of the Church for the work 
which was given him to do. 

The Beginning of the Reformation. 

The Church traces its Reformed history back 
to the early part of the 16th century. There is 
no longer any dispute among unprejudiced and 
well informed church historians over the fact 
that Zwingli began publicly to proclaim the 
principles of Evangelical Christianity as early as 
1 5 1 6, in Einsiedeln, Switzerland. This was one 
year before Luther began somewhat similar 
work in Germany. It should, however, not be 
inferred from the truth of the foregoing state- 
ments that 1516 was the date of the ineipiency 
of the great movement. Like all historic move- 
ments of fundamental importance for the world, 
the Reformation was the culmination of a pre- 
paratory process running through the preced- 
ing centuries. By careful searching, its roots, 
as well as the germs of its necessity, are found 
in the soil of the Middle- Ages. For centuries 
the forces and factors of history were used in 



The Reformed Standard of Truth. 



15 



the Providence of God to usher in the fullness 
of the time. Wyckliffe, Huss, Savonarola, 

John Wessel, Delasky and others are numbered 
among the forerunners of Zwingli and his yoke- 
fellows in the work. They sounded the pre- 
lusory notes of the Reformation long before the 
awakening of those mighty thunders which sent 
their echoes from Alpine peaks across the val- 
leys of the Rhine. 

The Reformed Standard of Truth. 
The Word of God has always been the high- 
est source of authority for the Reformed Church. 
As much may in truth be said of those branches 
that sprang from the great Reformed root, as 
also of the Lutheran denomination. And yet 
it is pre-eminently true of the Reformed Church 
proper. Zwingli from the very beginning laid 
primary emphasis upon the Holy Scriptures as 
the instructor in righteousness, as well as the 
final court of appeal in questions of ecclesiastic- 
al controversy. Luther, upon the other hand, 
wandered wide and long in the arid wastes of 
scholasticism before he reached the same con- 
clusion. Even then he continued to hamper 
himself with the vain traditions of men by hold- 
ing that the written word was not the exclusive 



The Reformed Chureh. 



warrant for the truth of a doctrine or for the 
propriety of a practice in the Church. 

Zwingli made all proper account of tradition 
and learning, and himself was a learned man. 
Perhaps the Protestant Church has not yet fully 
calculated the extent of his erudition and those 
broad scholarly attainments which, with his love 
for and proficiency in the ancient languages, 
helped to qualify him for the purely evangelical 
work which he was called to do upon the foun- 
dation of the prophets and apostles, according 
to the sure word of prophecy contained in the 
Holy Scriptures. He was highly favored in 
the teachers at whose feet Providence placed 
him as an apt disciple. 4 4 Henry Lupulus, " 
says Dr. David Van Home in his "Life of 
Zwingli" * ' was noted for his correct knowledge 
of the ancient classics, and he soon infused a 
spirit of research and study in this direction, on 
the part of his pupil, Ulric, who was only too 
well pleased to pursue the studies marked out 

for him He was enthusiastic in 

his studies of the classics; delighted in the 
poems of Hesiod, Homer, and Pindar, on the 
latter two preparing notes in the way of a com- 
mentary. He studied closely Cicero and 



The Reformed Standard of Truth. 



17 



Demosthenes, that he might learn of oratory 
and politics; and he also loved the wonders of 
nature as reported by Pliny, Thucydides and 
Sallust. Livy, Caesar, Suetonius, Plutarch, and 
Tacitus were all familiar to him." Yet the 
Word of God in the original languages was the 
sword of the Spirit with which he met the 
arrogant Goliath of the papacy and put to flight 
the long-entrenched army of the aliens. "It 
was in this manner," says Zwingli's personal 
and intimate friend, Myconius, "that we recov- 
ered the knowledge of heavenly truth." "His 
eminent teacher," (Thomas Wittenbach), con- 
tinues Dr. Van Home, "was not only well 
versed in the ancient languages, but he added 
to this a profound acquaintance with the Holy 
Scriptures. Out of the barren desert of school- 
wisdom, destitute of all water, it was this excel- 
lent man's habit to lead his pupil to the living 
sources of God's Word and teach them to draw 
water from thence for themselves and their 
flocks. 'The time is not far distant,' said 
Wittenbach, 'when the scholastic theology will 
be swept away, and the old doctrine of the 
Church established in its room, on the founda- 
tion of the Bible." 



i8 



The Reformed Church. 



In the light of all these providential circum- 
stances that surrounded the formative period of 
Zwingli's character as a Reformer, and all the 
favorable elements that entered into the prepar- 
ation for his reformatory work, it is now com- 
paratively easy for us to see and honor him as 
the very chiefest of the apostles and standard 
bearers who first held aloft the banner of evan- 
gelical truth. The same is measurably true of 
Frederick the Pious. When the echoes of the 
evangelical battle-cry in Switzerland had been 
wafted into Germany, that noble foster-father of 
the Reformed faith in the Palatinate made the 
Bible the rule of his duty to his God and to his 
subjects. So, too, in all the history of the 
Reformed Church for nearly 400 years, it has 
been professed and taught that "the Holy 
Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, 
which are called canonical Scriptures, are genu- 
ine, authentic, inspired and therefore, divine 
Scriptures; that they contain all things which 
relate to the faith, the practice and the hope of 
the righteous, and are the only rule of faith and 
practice in the Church of God." 

The Renovation Needed. 
The evil from which the Church needed to 



The Renovation Needed. 



l 9 



be thoroughly reformed was deep rooted, of 
chronic growth and manifold in form. For a 
thousand years the tendency had been away 
from the divine toward the human factors in the 
organic constitution of Christianity — from the 
incorruptible Word of God toward the corrupt- 
ing traditions of men, from spirituality toward 
carnality and from the freedom of God into the 
service of sin and Satan. This tendency finally 
culminated in such glaring heresies in doctrine 
and such abominable deeds in practice that the 
cry came from within the Church's own bosom 
for "deliverance from the bondage of corrup- 
tion into the glorious liberty of the children of 
God." 

To speak more in detail of these widely prev- 
alent evils which then afflicted the Catholic 
Church, it may be said that in doctrine human 
traditions had been practically pronounced 
supreme to the inspired Scriptures of God's 
Word; that the popes had arrogated to them- 
selves the authority to set aside the ordinations 
of heaven; that the priests claimed power to 
forgive sins; that the dignitaries of the Church 
could sell indulgences, or the permission to sin 
without fear of punishment; that the Lord's 



20 



The Reformed Church. 



Supper was a sacrifice in which the priests 
offered Christ repeatedly for the sins of the 
people. In practice the Romish priesthood was 
full of stupidity, profligacy and scandal. Pride, 
pomp and indolence prevailed among the pre- 
lates. Ignorance, vice and listlessness reigned 
among the laity. The sacred institutions of 
religion had fallen into contempt to make room 
for the feasts of carnal dissipation. "The pub- 
lic worship of God," says Mosheim, was now 
no more than a pompous round of external cer- 
emonies, insignificant and senseless." Empty 
ritualism, theatrical display, the employment of 
unauthorized means for the false propagation of 
Christianity, vanity Church fairs for the pretend- 
ed purpose of Church extension and carnal rev- 
elries in the name of religion surpassed, if 
possible, a similar category of perverse tenden- 
cies and practices now seen in some of the 
Protestant congregations of the nineteenth cen- 
tury. The Church was still the body of Christ, 
but full of spots and wrinkles. Such a state of 
things called for a renovation — a reformation. 
Zwingli and his coadjutors heard the call and 
proved by their actions that they were not diso- 
bedient to the heavenly mandate. Knowing 



Martin Luther. 



21 



that the Church could cleanse its ways only 
"by taking heed thereto according to God's 
Word," they stepped to the front, denounced 
the alarming evils of the age, unfurled the 
banner of truth and purity, and identified them- 
selves with the noblest cause that ever enlisted 
the sympathies of consecrated men. 

Martin Luther. 
As Luther did not belong to the Reformed 
Church in the sense that this relation is to be 
understood of Zwingli and some others, the 
scope and purpose of this little book neither 
permits nor requires of us to speak of him at 
length ; and yet there are reasons why at least 
one or two short paragraphs should in this con- 
nection be written of that good, great man. 
He was justly honored in his age, and as long 
as the influences of Protestantism shall endure 
he will continue to be held in high regard as 
the human head of a great party in evangelical 
Christendom. It was no fault of his that his 
party followers became charmed at the magic of 
his name, and placed it at the mast head of a 
denomination, so that it became etymologically 
the root of that significant word — Lutheranism, 
which is so appropriately expressive of a dis- 



22 



The Reformed Church, 



tinct mode of apprehending some of the funda- 
mental truths of the Christian religion. 

Martin Luther was born at Eisleben, Ger- 
many, November ioth, 1483. He was only 
one year behind Zwingli in preaching against 
the evil tendencies of the times, and in publicly 
proclaiming the pure principles of evangelical 
truth. His name will ever appear upon the 
page of history with no less luster than that of 
the Swiss Reformer. 

The Sacramentarian Controversy. 

As the result of different modes of appre- 
hending the truth, and partially from a misun- 
derstanding of each other's respective positions, 
a controversy arose 1524 between Luther and 
Zwingli concerning the manner of Christ's pres- 
ence in the Holy Supper. Luther contended 
for the literal rendering of the Lord's words: 
' ' this is my body," while Zwingli translated 
"this is" by the words "this signifies." Dr. 
Hase, the Lutheran Church historian, says that 
"Luther was boisterous and sometimes ludic- 
rous," while Zwingli was more polished, but 
bitter. Probably the degree of Zwingli's bitter- 
ness may be most fairly determined in the light 



John Calvin. 



23 



of his noble conduct at Marburg, 1529, when, 
as the above named Lutheran historian states it, 
"Zwingli was induced by the strength of his 
convictions, with tears, to offer Luther his 
fraternal hand, even if the principal points of 
their difference should remain undecided, but 
this was rejected." Two years afterward 
Zwingli passed into the skies to receive a mar- 
tyr's crown, and God called his successor to the 
stage of the world's great theater. That suc- 
cessor was 

John Calvin. 

Having noticed Switzerland as the earliest 
historic ground, and Zwingli as the first historic 
leader, we now proceed to inquire after the 
secondary sources of the Reform movement. 
Next to Zwingli is Calvin. He was born at 
Noyon, France, July roth, 1509, after Zwingli 
had already been three years pastor of the con- 
gregation at Giants, and about the time that 
Luther was upon his suppliant knees at Rome 
attempting to ascend through Pilate s staircase 
to obtain a promised blessing from the Pope. 
Calvin was highly favored in that Providential 
ordering of things which deferred the date of 
his birth until others had sown the seed and 



^4 



The Reformed Church. 



watered the growing crop for his might}' sickle. 
If Calvin's star shines out with greater luster in 
the galaxy of Reformed theologians, it must 
not be forgotten that the Swiss Reformer pre- 
pared the way for the great logician of Geneva. 
Zwingli was not the harbinger of a greater man, 
but the predecessor of a different type of a man 
— a man whose vigorous intellect gave him 
peculiar qualifications for the ready comprehen- 
sion of religious truths, and the arrangement of 
them logically and systematically in their rela- 
tion to each other. For example: Zwingli had 
failed to bring out prominently and with full 
emphasis the fact that in the Holy Supper a 
life-union with the person of Christ is realized in 
the true believer. Calvin, belonging not to a 
second-class place among the Reformers, but to 
the second period of the Reformation, took up 
the work where Zwingli had laid it down. As 
touching the manner of Christ's presence m the 
sacrament of the Lord's Supper, Calvin's quick- 
ness of perception soon seized this fundamental 
truth of Christianity, which Zwingli had as yet 
only partially apprehended, and carried it for- 
ward in its further development toward its 
subsequent formulation in the Heidelberg Cate- 



Philip Melancthon. 



25 



chism. The Reformed Church is greatly 
indebted to John Calvin for the contributions of 
his Christian genius toward the solution of this 
problem as now held in its honored symbol of 
faith. Next to Calvin, as the third great 
Reformed theologian, is 

Philip Melancthon. 
As early as 1523 the writings of Zwingli had 
spread in Swabia, Bavaria, Franconia and 
Alsace. His influence reached out rapidly and 
told powerfully upon Southern Germany. In 
that country it aroused the opposition of Luth- 
eranism fully as much as it did the displeasure 
of the papacy. With this Lutheran opposition 
Melancthon was at first identified, for he was 
one of Luther's followers and friends, and a 
better theologian than Luther himself. He, 
however, belonged also to that noble class of 
men who are willing to unlearn whatever they 
may have learned amiss. With this character- 
istic love for the truth wherever found, he com- 
bined an irenical spirit, a mildness of disposition 
and a most thorough Christian scholarship. 
Soon after his writing of the Augsburg Confes- 
sion, which was designed to be not only the 
formulation, but also the impregnable Gibraltar 

(3) 



26 



The Reformed Church. 



of Lutheranism, he changed the tenth article 
thereof with a view of having it harmonize with 
the Reformed doctrine of the Lord's Supper. 
Indeed, he began to move so directly and so 
fast toward this cardinal point in the Reformed 
compass that already in 1530 Bucer felt himself 
justified in writing to Schwebel: * ' Melancthon 
stated that he would be satisfied with him, if 
only it were acknowledged that Christ is pres- 
ent in the Supper, not in the bread, and present 
to the soul, not to the body." 

The best evidence of his conversion to the 
Reformed doctrine was the fact that even before 
Luther's death Melancthon began to suffer for 
righteousness' sake at the hands of such Luther- 
an party followers as Hesshuss and many others. 
This persecution was encouraged by a knowl- 
edge of his mildness and timidity. It is now 
pretty clearly established that Melancthon 
finally abandoned Luther's theory of the Lord's 
Supper, though he still lacked the courage 
openly to announce his convictions. In vain 
did Calvin urge him to come out in a public 
statement of his conversion to the Reformed 
faith, which was no doubt measurably attribut- 
able to the Genevan Reformer's influence then 



An Unsatisfactory Truce. 



27 



telling so powerfully for the truth wherever the 
light of the Reformation was shining forth in its 
morning splendor. Moreover, the correct 
reader of Reformed Church history can not fail 
to see that it was a part of Calvin's mission to 
bear witness of that light which Zwingli, before 
him, had liberated from the Word of God, and 
to serve as a conscious conductor of that origin- 
al current of heavenly electricity, which the 
Swiss Reformer had already drawn, through the 
study of the Bible, from the upper clouds, and 
sent abroad for the purification of the Church's 
polluted atmosphere and the ultimate healing of 
the nations. 

An Unsatisfactory Truce. 

Largely through the conciliatory spirit of 
Melancthon, and his changing of the tenth 
article of the Augsburg Confession to bring it 
into harmony with the Reformed doctrine of 
the Lord's Supper, the controversy concerning 
the manner of Christ's presence therein was 
brought to a close. There was a truce between 
the parties from 1536 to 1552. The dispute 
was then opened again with more intense feel- 
ing than ever. The great question was substan- 
tially the same as that discussed at Marburg, 



28 



The Reformed Church, 



but the arena of conflict had expanded itself 
into a wider field. The fact of a real commun- 
ion in a general way was claimed and conceded 
on both sides; but the Lutheran party insisted 
that the mystery should be defined and the 
mode of Christ's presence as well as the com- 
municant's participation reduced to a formula. 
Furthermore, the Lutheran disputants demand- 
ed that the formula should teach Christ's sacra- 
mental presence as "in with and under' the 
elements of bread and wine, and that the Lord 
was in such union with these outward elements 
as to be received with them by the month of all 
communicants, whether believers or unbelievers. 
The Reformed held that Christ by his Spirit 
was present in the sacrament to be received 
through faith by believers only. The contest- 
ants in this memorable controversy were, on 
the Lutheran side, Westphal, Timann and 
others; on the Reformed side, Calvin, Harden- 
berg and Meiancthon, so far as his constitutional 
timidity permitted him to take part in the 
discussion. While this controversy was being 
waged around the city of Bremen, the turbulent 
elements w T ere in reality only shifting themselves 
into more cyclonic form with their storm center in 



Frederick III 



29 



The Palatinate. 

We have already spoken of Switzerland as 
the birthplace of the Reformed Church. Let 
us now take a glance at the historic province 
in which the Reformed apprehension of Prot- 
estant principles was first fully formulated into 
a confession of faith. This province is not now 
easily located on the modern map of Germany. 
It is, however, approximately correct to state 
that its southern boundary line crossed the 
Rhine not far from the city of Strasburg, and 
that it included territory on both sides of that 
river in a northerly direction towards its conflu- 
ence with the River Main. At the time of the 
Reformation it was known as the Palatinate, (in 
German Pfalz). As the province lay on both 
sides of the river it was sometimes called the 
Palatinate of the Rhine. The City of Heidel- 
berg was its capitol. 

Frederick III. 

During the time of the Reformation and for 
some years thereafter the Palatinate was gov- 
erned by a ruler called an Elector. At the 
death of Otto Henry in 1558, Frederick III. 
succeeded him in the Electorate. This illus- 



30 



The Reformed Church, 



trious prince soon became proverbial for his 
Godliness, and is deservedly known in history 
as Frederick the Pious. He labored most 
assiduously to promote the spiritual, as well as 
the temporal prosperity of his people. His 
pious soul was, therefore, much grieved at the 
bitter theological controversy waged among 
some of his subjects. He was anxious to allay 
the strife by the use of moderate means, but 
soon found his heart sickening and saddening 
over his failure. More vigorous measures were, 
therefore, resorted to by this pious and cour- 
ageous prince. Hesshuss and Klebiz, the lead- 
ing disputants, were both dismissed from their 
professorial chairs in the University of Heidel- 
berg. 

About that time Frederick seems to have 
become very positive in his conviction that the 
dispute should be settled, and a rule of faith 
prepared and adopted in his own little realm. 
He had no intention of giving the entire world 
a standard of Reformed doctrine for all the 
centuries of the future. Writing to Melancth- 
on, he received a favorable response from that 
great theologian. Encouraged by the result of 
such correspondence and other manifestations 



Ursinus and Olevianus. 



31 



of approval from various sources, as well as 
from the general tenor of the vigorous Reformed 
literature sent into his realm from Zurich and 
Geneva, he began to look around him for the 
men to whom the important work was to be 
committed. 

Ursinus and Olevianus. 

Zacharias Ursinus was born in the City of 
Breslau, July 18th, 1534; Casper Olevianus in 
the City of Treves, August 10th, 1536. Class- 
ically and liberally educated, they both took 
high rank among the distinguished scholars and 
theologians of their age. Ursinus was the more 
profound thinker, and through his books com- 
muned much with the good and the great who 
had lived before him ; Olevianus possessed more 
personal magnetism and lofty enthusiasm, and 
lived in closer sympathy with his cotempor- 
aries. Possessed of fine natural abilities and 
excellent scholarly attainments, they had been 
appointed by Frederick to responsible positions 
in Heidelberg University. Ursinus was a disci- 
ple of Melancthon, while the mind of his col- 
league was receiving some special schooling at 
the feet of the great Genevan Master, John Cal- 



32 



The Reformed Church 



vin. These were the men whom Frederick 
appointed in the early part of 1562 to prepare 
the book which for more than three centuries 
has served the double purpose of an instructor 
in righteousness and a symbol of faith — the 
book that will live on in the centuries as long as 
the heart of the Reformed Church shall beat in 
the bosom of an expanding Christendom. 

The Reformed Symbol of Faith. 
Ursinus and Olevianus entered almost imme- 
diately upon the responsible work to which they 
had been appointed. Their labors resulted in 
the production of the Heidelberg Catechism. 
In performing their task they had no thought 
that the book would ever become what it now 
is — the subordinate standard of faith for the 
Reformed Church. It issued from the press at 
the close of the year 1562, was adopted and 
introduced into the Churches of the Palatinate 
on the 19th of January 1563, and soon began 
to prove itself the best formulation of Christian 
doctrine produced in that stirring, stormy cen- 
tury. Dr. SchafF, as quoted by Dr. J. H. Good 
says of the Heidelberg Confession: "It is the 
flower of the entire Reformation. It has Luth- 
eran inwardness, Meiancthonian clearness, 



War Upon the Catechism. - 33 

Zwinglian simplicity and Calvinistic fire, all 
fused together. It is rather the product of 
faith and piety, than of knowledge and theolo- 
gy." This happy combination of essential and 
complemental elements gave it immediate favor 
with its foster father, Frederick, and secured 
for it the growing admiration of unprejudiced 
Christian intelligence throughout the world. It 
was soon received with approval and joy in all 
the countries of Europe where the Reformation 
had gained a foothold. Switzerland, France, 
England, Hungary, Poland, Germany and 
Holland, all seemed to compete with each other 
in their efforts to deck its brow with the chap- 
lets of their admiration. It was soon published 
in many languages and dialects. The nations 
of Europe, and the peoples of the continents all 
around the planet began to stand upon the tip- 
toe of their anxiety to hear it speak to them in 
their own tongues, the wonderful works of God. 

War Upon the Catechism. 
Notwithstanding its merits and its meekness 
the catechism was soon assailed. Romanists 
and Lutherans sought the young child's life to 
destroy it. Its very lamblikeness called the 
lion of opposition from his lair and sharpened 



34 



The Reformed Church. 



the tooth of his exasperation. Like the 
Reformed Church, it has suffered persecution 
for righteousness sake; and like the saints in 
heaven, it has passed through great tribulation. 
If it had been more of the world in temper and 
language the world would have loved its own. 
Under the circumstances, however, the little 
book provoked the opposition of turbulent spir- 
its until they exhausted their fury upon its in- 
vulnerable truth, or found themselves rebuked 
by its pacific tone. Though assailed from every 
point of the compass, it stood, and still stands 
as firm as a rock amidst the dashing waves of 
heresy and hatred — of formalism and fanaticism 
— holding aloft, as a beacon light, the Reform- 
ed apprehension of Scriptural teachings, in con- 
fessional form for all people and for all ages. 

The Branching Period. 
As in the spheres of the vegetable and the 
animal kingdoms there is a branch period, so 
also is it in the higher realm of spiritual life as 
it holds and unfolds itself in God's kingdom 
which is embodied in the Church. This season 
or period is always at the time of favorable cor- 
respondence and co-operation between the 
inward life-force of the organism and the sur- 



The Anglican Branch. 



35 



rounding condition of things. The plant can- 
not shoot its branches in a place where there is 
neither light, nor warmth, nor moisture. Just 
as little can the presence merely of all these con- 
ditions bring buds and branches from a lifeless 
rod. In the middle of the sixteenth century 
the church was ready to branch, and the condi- 
tions of the world were in the providence of 
God favorable to such a manifestation of the 
Church's life. This readiness or favorable con- 
dition on the part of the world consisted in its 
revived state of learning, the emancipation of 
the public mind from narrowness and supersti- 
tion, the vigilance and political condition of the 
nations, all of which had been brought about or 
modified by the Reformation, even as that was 
the culmination of a movement whose roots 
were found in the earlier translations of the 
Bible, and the work of reformers from the time 
of John Huss, and all those antecedant influ- 
ences which for centuries had been at work in 
preparing the continent of Europe for evangel- 
ical freedom and ecclesiastical multiformity. 

The Anglican Branch. 
The Episcopal is a branch of the Reformed 
Church. The facts of history require and jus- 



36 



The Reformed Church. 



tify this view of the relation between the 
two. To admit that Wycliffe had prepar- 
ed the way of the Reformation in England is to 
grant no more than truth concedes to Huss in 
Bohemia, Savonarola in Florence, John Wessel 
in the Netherlands and others in different parts 
of the continent. It was not until after Zwingli 
had lived and died that England by an act of 
Parliament, 1534 declared her ecclesiastical 
independence of Rome and the Pope. This act 
was prompted by political rather than purely 
religious considerations. Instead of being pri- 
marily a movement in Church reform, it was 
more properly the opening of the door for the 
Reformation. In 1536 some English students, 
having received glimmerings of evangelical light 
from Switzerland, as also from the writings of 
Luther, went to Zurich to study theology. 
About the middle of the century, Peter Martyr 
a professor of theology at Zurich, in Switzer- 
land, Henry Bullinger and Martin Bucer, all 
Swiss Reformed theologians, either by going to 
England or by correspondence with the English 
prelates, did much in the work of modifying 
the ritualistic order of worship as it had been 
used for centuries, as well as in helping forward 



The Scottish Branch. 



37 



the work of the English Reformation in general. 
The Episcopal branch of the Reformed Church 
is so called from the form of government which 
obtains in that body. The Methodist Episcopal 
body is a very vigorous twig of the Episcopal 
branch of the Reformed Church, and has the 
same form of government, with a growing ten- 
dency toward Presbyterialism. . 

The Scottish Branch. 
The Presbyterian Church as a branch of the 
Reformed Church may be said to have been 
formally organized by the adoption of the 
Westminster Confession of Faith in 1647. At 
that time the Heidelberg Confession was near- 
ing the end of its first century in the history of 
evangelical Protestantism. During that period 
John Knox completed his work as the great 
Scotch Reformer. As a student of Calvin he 
placed the Calvinistic impress, as well as Scotch 
staidness upon the Scottish form of Christianity. 
Filled with new impulses of fiery zeal from his 
great Genevan teacher, he defied the fury of 
Roman Catholicism enthroned in Mary Stuart. 
Having nothing but the fear of God before his 
eyes he preached the gospel to Scotland's 
Queen until his energy and eloquence dissolved 



38 



The Reformed Church. 



the tempests of her passion into the torrents of 
her tears. Knox died in 1572, but the work 
that he did as a Reformer will continue to live 
on in the history of his country and in the front 
ranks of the world's great march of progress. 
The Scottish branch of the Reformed Church, 
with its several ramifications in Europe and 
America, holds to the presbyterial order of 
church government. This as well as its views 
of God's unlimited sovereignty were largely 
derived from the Genevan school of theology, 
and yet not to the exclusion of the influence 
which came from Zurich, and Zwingli, and the 
writings of St Augustine. The Presbyterian 
branch of the Reformed Church, as now flour- 
ishing in the United States, is a daughter of 
whose pedigree and testimony for the truth the 
mother may well be proud. 

Religious Parasites. 
Whether in the vegetable or in the animal 
kingdom, whether in the natural, or clinging to 
its host in the supernatural, the parasite is a 
pauper and a pest Its life is mere existence, 
its organism is low in the scale of being, its 
habit is theftuous depredation and its tendency 
is to degenerate. The Reformed Church, like 



Religious Parasites. 39 

* 

the Church in apostolic and primitive times, 
has always been afflicted with parasites. Be- 
cause it is like a "tree of the Lord full of sap," 
these ignoble creatures cling to its organism and 
prey upon its substance. They not only crept 
into its cradle seeking to devour its young life, 
but have also followed it through all its history 
with a thievish propensity for spoil and plunder. 

Among these parisitic growths may be men- 
tioned all those lawless hordes of fanatics which 
prey upon the vitals and alienate the unwary 
members of the Church, while they appeal to 
their own interpretation of Scripture to justify 
their erratic zeal and stimulate their passionate 
impulses. They range from the imagination of 
the Muggletonians to the miserable monstrcsity 
of Mormonism. Some of thern are mere reviv- 
als of old heresies with hereditary death in the 
pot. We mention the Anabaptists (15 21), the 
Antitrinitarians (1528), the Socinians (1604), 
the Schwenkfeldians (1561), and the Sweden- 
borgians, (1740). It does not fall within the 
proper scope and purpose of this little book to 
give even the outlines of these pestiferous sects. 
They may be tolerated but should not be 
encouraged. Even that Christian charity which 



40 



The Reformed Chi trek. 



"believeth all things" may be allowed to shrug 
her comely shoulders in the boastful presence of 
their unwarranted pretentions. Suffice it here 
to apply to them this general formula of truth: 
Only that which grows legitimately out of the 
organism and yet continues in the organism 
according to the fundamental law of unity in 
diversity, can share in the true dignity of the 
organism and in the divinely ordained destiny 
that awaits it. 

The Principle of Perpetuity. 
As the church did not come into being by 
the Reformation, it can never go out of exist- 
ence by any malformations that may grow from, 
cluster around or cling to its organism. Neith- 
er can any legitimate branching therefrom work 
permanent injury to the Church. Indeed, the 
shooting of legitimate branches from the parent 
stem is one of the conditions ordained by the 
wise and benevolent Giver of all life for the con- 
tinuation of the central stem in its upward 
growth. "There is that scattereth and yet 
increaseth. " The general principle of truth 
underlying this Scripture of the Word is beauti- 
fully applicable to the Reformed Church 
through all the 373 years already numbered 



Truth Differently Apprehended. 



41 



upon the pages of its history. It has not only 
furnished a " noble army of martyrs" for the 
gloomy dungeon, the fiery stake and the 
immortal crown, but also its witnesses for the 
truth in almost every land; and yet the burning 
bush has not been consumed. Transplanted to 
all the countries of Europe, and subsequently 
into all the continents of the earth, it followed 
the example of its Divine-human Lord by adapt- 
ing itself to the various types of national life it 
sought to pervade and save. In its new sur- 
roundings it always clung tenaciously to the 
essential principles of its Ecclesiastical being, 
and continued its fidelity to the conditions of its 
heavenly Charter. 

Truth Differently Apprehended. 

Besides the Anglican and Scottish branches 
of the Reformed Church, already spoken of in 
this book, and which, as we have seen, took 
their denominational titles respectively from 
their adopted forms of Church government, 
there were other different Reformed organiza- 
tions known in history by the name of the 
province or nation in which the principles of 
the Reformation took root and flourished. 

Hence history now speaks of what is known as 

(4) 



42 



The Reformed Church. 



The Reformed Church of Switzerland, The 
Reformed Church of France, The Reformed 
Church of Hungary, The Reformed Church of 
Prussia, The Reformed Church of Holland and 
The Reformed Church or Churches of Germany. 
These all either received the Heidelberg Cate- 
chism soon after its adoption in the Palatinate, 
or adopted it as a rule of their faith at the time 
their organizations were constituted. Other 
catechisms already in use were usually allowed 
to retain their places, other modes of Christian 
thought were tolerated and other formularies of 
Scriptural truth were sometimes fostered. 
Among those of the sixteenth century, besides 
the Augsburg Confession, which was never 
antagonized with unchristian bitterness, was the 
First Confession of Basel, (1534); the Second 
Cojifession of Basel — that is the First Helvetic 
Confession, (1536); the Gallic Confession, 
(1559); the Old Scotic Confession, (1560); the 
Belgic Confession, (1562); the Second Helvetic 
Confession, (1566). In some of these there was 
a large, if not a prevailing proportion of the 
theology taught at Zurich or Geneva, or in both 
of these schools. Especially did they contain 
a growing vein of Calvinism. Calvin died in 



Truth Differently Apprehended, 43 



1564, and yet, though dead, he still spake with 
more power and effect than the most of his 
theological survivers. His stalwart views of the 
Divine Sovereignty acted like leaven in all the 
Reformed theology of Europe. 

The Heidelberg Confession had just enough 
Calvinism for the confiding heart of the Chris- 
tian, and yet not enough for the speculative 
brain of the disputant. All the Reformed 
Churches, then as now, were at least moder- 
ately Calvinistic. Some of the members were 
so constituted as to allow themselves to be car- 
ried over into an extreme position. The cate- 
chism as moderately intoned with the doctrine 
of Divine Sovereignty was, therefore, not just 
what such persons sought after as they wan- 
dered away into the wilderness of metaphysics. 
On the other hand anti-Calvinistic doctrine was 
advocated by Arminius and his followers. 
Some of the churches were turned into debating 
schools, and as a consequence faith was some- 
times retired to the back ground while human 
reason rushed to the front to seek a saving 
apprehension of gospel truth. The bulls of 
Bashan broke into the garden of the Lord's 
house and stubbornly refused to go out until 



44 



The Reformed Church. 



the disputed points at issue were either settled 
or explained by some new formula. This was 
the case to some extent in 

The Reformed Church of Holland. 

John Wessel was the Wycliffe of Holland, 
and one of the Reformers before the Reforma- 
tion. Providence was pleased to use his writ- 
ings with other co-operative agencies to prepare 
the way for the Reformation in the Netherlands. 
While that independent and thrifty people were 
building their dykes around the Hollow-land 
and driving back the waves of the North Sea 
for the purpose of enlarging and securing their 
borders, the spirit of civil and religious liberty 
was moving toward the birth of the Republic 
and the full emancipation of 4 4 the Church under 
the cross." The Reformation in Holland was 
closely allied with political revolution, and both 
came through a baptism of blood. The sword 
of the Spirit and the sword of Maurice, the 
Prince of Orange, were simultaneously drawn 
against the combined powers of Philip II., and 
the Pope of Rome. It was a conflict involving 
martyrdom and heroism as over against the 
most relentless tyranny. After a long struggle 
the Reformed Church of Holland came up out 



The Reformed Church of Holland. 



45 



of great tribulation leaning upon the arm of 
him who himself had come from Edom, with 
dyed garments from Bozroh. Toward the close 
of the sixteenth century civil and religious free- 
dom were secured and acknowledged. 

From the first the Protestantism of Holland 
was of a Calvinistic type. The Belgic Confes- 
sion and Calvin's Genevan Catechism had been 
in use before the adoption of the Heidelberg 
Catechism in 1574. But the catechism, like 
the Bible, was susceptible of different interpre- 
tations according as it was approached from 
different theological standpoints. Hence a dis- 
pute arose. The conflict was not directly 
between the fire of Calvin and the spirit of 
Zwingli as stated by the historian, Hase. It 
was the spirit of Jacob Arminius that projected 
the great theological dispute in the memorable 
Synod of Dort, (1609-16 18). Francis Gomar- 
us saw the truth through a pair of predestinar- 
ian spectacles, and championed its apprehension 
as embodied in Calvin's system of theology. 
The Arminians presented a justification of their 
anti-predestinarian creed. This was called the 
Remonstrance. It was opposed by a large 
majority of the synod, and Arminianism was 



46 The Reformed Church. 

ecclesiastically condemned. After the death of 
the Prince of Orange, (1625) the Arminians 
were tolerated in the spirit of Zwingli and in 
the broad and liberal genius of the Heidelberg 
Catechism. The articles adopted by the Synod 
of Dort and confirmed bv the States-General 
were regarded by the Gomarists as the true 
interpretation of the Heidelberg Confession, and 
were henceforth looked upon as the dyke built 
up by the Reformed Church of Holland for the 
protection of the Divine Sovereignty against 
any tide that might possibly arise out of the 
boggy lowlands of Arminianism. 

The Reformed Churches in Germany. 

As already stated in this book, the Reforma- 
tion which started in Switzerland moved down 
the valley of the Rhine into southwestern Ger- 
manv. Although Luther was and must ever be 
regarded as the great German Reformer, it is 
not to him that the Reformed Church in Ger- 
many traces its origin. He was the father and 
fountain of Lutheranism as something measur- 
ably different and entirely distinct from the 
Reformed Church in Germany and elsewhere 
within the expanding borders of Christendom. 
The writings of Zwingli soon found their way 



The Reformed Churches in Germany. 47 

into Germany and began, to work like leaven in 
the meal. These were followed by the teach- 
ings of John Calvin, which were made known 
through his correspondence, catechisms, pub- 
lished tracts and his Institutes, which were read 
by scholars and theologians as early as 1536. 
These writings were among the influences which 
helped to modify the views of Melancthon 
whose reputation as a Christian scholar and 
theologian can never suffer in comparison with 
that of Martin Luther, his great human master. 
These three — Zwingli, Calvin and Melancthon 
— may therefore be reckoned and esteemed as 
the first theologians in the Reformed Church of 
Germany. To some extent they modified and 
gave greater clearness of expression to each 
other's apprehension of Scriptural teaching until 
their spirits blended with that of Frederick the 
Pious, and began to flow in the veins of the 
Heidelberg Catechism. 

After God had taken all these good men to 
their reward in heaven, the Reformed Church 
in Germany entered upon its long season of 
disciplinary affliction. Like the infant Hebrew 
Church in Egypt, and the young Christian 
community under decaying Judaism, and the 



4 8 



The Reformed Church. 



Roman Empire, the infancy of the Reformed 
Church in Germany was sorely tried in the bap- 
tism of persecution. It would seem from a 
careful reading of history that all the angry 
winds of the universe had been turned loose to 
try the patience of the saints. The Thirty 
Years' War was terribly disastrous ; and even the 
treaty of Westphalia (1648) was only an empty 
proclamation of peace when there was no 
peace. As pertaining to civil government the 
German people were divided among themselves. 
Petty princes took advantage of this misfortune 
and consumed the resources of the peasantry 
upon their own unbridled lusts. After being 
thus reduced to a state of helplessness the 
Palatinate was invaded by the Roman Catholic 
powers of France. Plantations were destroyed; 
cities were swept away by the ruthless ravages 
of war; Heidelberg, the ancient seat of learn- 
ing, was ransacked with ruinous vandalism and 
Germany turned into a battlefield for the 
diabolical sport of despotisms enthroned. 
Many thousands of Reformed homes went up 
in the conflagrations of cruel war. The merci- 
less invaders painted the horrors of hell upon 
the lurid canvass of the midnight skies by burn- 



The Reformed Churches in Germany. 49 



ing the hamlets of the German peasants. Some 
of these fled from their fatherland to find shel- 
tering arms among their Reformed brethren in 
Holland. In this continued state of things it 
was impossible for the Reformed Church in 
Germany to be formed into anything like a 
compact organization. It has therefore been 
more proper to speak of the Reformed 
Churches in Germany. Among these may be 
mentioned the Reformed Church in the Palatin- 
ate, in Hessia, in Lippe, Friesland, Anhalt, 
Nassau, Westphalia, the Rheinish Provinces 
and in other parts of the territory now included 
in the German Empire. 

In the early decades of this present century 
the Reformed Church and the Lutheran body 
in that part of Germany then known as Prussia, 
united, and are now known in that country as 
the " Evangelical Church/' According to the 
terms of the Concordat, or agreement, this union 
does not imply or involve any charge in theo- 
logical views or faith. ' 'This Church Union," 
says Dr. Dubbs, in his excellent Historic Man- 
ual, "has gradually extended over Protestant 
Germany, and now includes the Churches which 
were originally Reformed, with the exception of 



50 



The Reformed Church, 



a comparatively small number of congregations, 
collectively numbering not more than 40,000 
members. The Reformed Churches in the 
Union — by which we mean the Churches which 
still regard themselves as distinctively Reformed, 
though connected with the Established Church 
— have, according to an estimate in the Encyclo- 
paedia Britannica, a membership of 465,120; 
but from a computation published some years 
ago in the Refornurte Kirclienzeitung, of Erlan- 
gen, it appears that the actual number may, 
perhaps, amount to about 1,000,000. The 
Reformed element in the Evangelical Church of 
Germany is, however, much more important 
than these figures would seem to indicate." 

Our Pilgrim Fathers. 

Great prominence is given in the records of 
American history to the landing of the Pilgrims 
on the Rock of Plymouth. This is meet and 
right. They showed themselves worthy of a 
place in sentiment and in song. It is said that 
each one had a conscience in his bosom; and 
the truth of this report has never been doubted, 
except by those who believe that Roger 
Williams had a conscience also. It should not 
be forgotten, however, that there were others 



Our Pilgrim Fathers. 



5 1 



about that time in the seventeenth century who 
endured hardship and displayed heroism because 
of certain conscientious scruples concerning 
matters of religion. It is reasonable to infer 
from well authenticated records of history that 
the Heidelberg Catechism was planted as a 
standard of faith in America several years before 
the landing of the Puritans. As early as 1614, 
emigrants from Holland settled in different 
portions of New York and began to regard this 
country as the "Land of the Pilgrim's pride. " 

Later on and mostly in the early part of the 
eighteenth century, Reformed emigrants came 
from Germany and Switzerland and settled 
along the Atlantic coast in Pennsylvania, Dela- 
ware, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, Georgia 
and the two Carolinas. It appears in the 
records of history that during one year more 
than 30,000 left the Palatinate alone to seek a 
home in this land of the free. Poverty and 
that intolerable oppression which produced it 
drove many of the Reformed people from 
Nassau, Waldeck, Witgenstein, Wetterau and 
other districts in the Fatherland. These 
"sought a better country," and the most of 
them found it in Pennsylvania and adjacent 



52 



The Reformed Church, 



territory. "Many of these emigrants," says 
Dr. Harbaugh, in his Life of Rev. Michael 
Schlatter, "were truly pious, and though not 
able to bring their ministers, brought with them 
their catechisms, hymn-books and other devo- 
tional books, and in some cases also pious 
school-masters." If these were not pilgrims to 
a shrine, they were at least weary travelers in 
search of a place where they could erect their 
altars, profess their faith and transmit its bless- 
ings unmolested to their children. 

The Reformed Church in America. 

As already stated the first Reformed emi- 
grants that landed on American shores were 
from Holland. They came as early as 1609, 
and soon after founded colonies and organized 
Christian congregations on Manhattan Island 
where New York City now stands, and also, 
about the same time, where the city of Albany 
has since sprung up. Rev. Jonas Michaelius 
and Rev. Everardus Bogardus are mentioned as 
among the first Dutch ministers in this country. 
The first congregations were organized by the 
authority of the Classis of Amsterdam in the 
Synod of North Holland. From the same 
classis the Dutch pioneer ministers received 



The Reformed Church in America. 53 

their license and ordination, and to that ecclesi- 
astical body all the Reformed ministers and 
churches then in this country were subject. 
This relation of dependence and subordination 
to the mother church continued, with some 
modifications, until 1792. At that time the 
Reformed Church in America (then and later 
on known as the Dutch Reformed Church) con- 
sisted of five classes with about 120 congrega- 
tions. 

Having been weaned from the breast of the 
dear old mother in Holland, the thriving child 
began to feel the necessity of supplying itself 
with the means of subsistence from other 
sources. A theological seminary was thought 
of and talked about. In 1784 the Rev. Dr. 
John H. Livingston was appointed to take 
charge of the work of founding such an institu- 
tion. The laudable enterprise was finally suc- 
cessful. Since then the Church has greatly 
prospered. At this time its organization 
includes a General Synod, 4 District Synods, 
566 ministers, 547 congregations, 85,534 com- 
municants, and 200,000 adherents. 

The Reformed Church in America is noted 
for its possessions of great wealth, is respectable 



54 



The Reformed Church, 



in the broad and thorough qualifications of its 
ministry, as well as in the intelligence and 
culture of its laity. The church has a clear self- 
consciousness and a well cultivated self-respect. 
It is manifestly alive to the cause and in the 
work of missions. Some of its finest records in 
the foreign missionary field are found in the 
rising civilization of Japan. The Church is as 
orthodox as the Heidelberg Catechism which it 
Calvinistically interprets by the Belgic Confes- 
sion and the Articles of Dort, and which it 
continues to cherish in the same warmth of 
fidelity to principle that characterized the age in 
which the catechism was born. 

The Reformed Church in the United States. 

This organization was formerly known as the 
German Reformed Church, and is still so called 
by the ignorant. For a number of years 
there had been a growing conviction that this 
title was inappropriate and too narrow to 
express the fullness of the Catholic Church 
reformed, and, therefore, a consequent hin- 
derance to the proper and complete fulfillment 
of its mission in the world. After proper con- 
stitutional action on the part of the lower eccle- 
siastical judicatories, the matter came up for 



First Congregations in this Country. 55 

final disposition in the General Synod convened 
in Philadelphia, 1869, when it was officially 
announced that the title of the Church was 
changed from German Reformed to that of the 

Reformed Church iit the United States. 

First Congregations Organized in this Coun- 
try. 

Aside from the German congregations pre- 
viously organized in the Schoharie and Mohawk 
settlements in New York State, then called the 
New Netherlands, as early as 171 1, and which 
have since been absorbed by what was then 
known as the Dutch Reformed Church, we 
come now to speak of those early German and 
Swiss ministers and people who first brought 
the Reformed faith from their respective father- 
lands and planted it for permanent growth upon 
the American continent. The names now 
acknowledged as entitled to places upon the 
roll of our ministerial pioneers were George 
Michael Weiss, John Philip Boehm, John Henry 
Goetschey, John Bartholomew Reiger, John 
Peter Miller and John Bechtel. These began 
their pioneer work in eastern Pennsylvania. 
The first Church erected was a log structure at 
Skippack in Montgomery County as early as 



56 



The Reformed Church. 



i J 26. In 1746 Rev. Michael Schlatter, a 
Swiss missionary, was sent to Philadelphia by 
the Synod of Holland to look after the 
Reformed Church in that section of the coun- 
try. He found forty-six congregations. They 
were in a confused and discouraged condition. 
To this state they had been reduced by a com- 
bination of unfavorable circumstances. Schlat- 
ter's arrival was opportune. He was a man of 
great prudence, full of self-sacrifice and eminent 
for Godliness. Like St. Paul, he immediately 
took upon himself 4 'the care of all the 
Churches. " His missionary journeys extended 
through portions of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, 
-Maryland and Virginia. After laboring in this 
country one year he had the way prepared to 
organize 

The First Reformed Synod. 

After some preliminary steps, the first regu- 
lar meeting of this Synod or Coetus was con- 
vened in Philadelphia, September 29th, 1747. 
Five ministers and twenty-six elders were in 
attendance. The organization was constituted 
under the authority of the Synod of Holland, 
to which it remained subject and reported its 
proceedings until 1792, when this relation was 



The Revolutionary War. 



57 



discontinued on account of the revolutionary- 
state of things in Europe. At that time the 
Coetus became an independent body known as 
the Synod of the United States. It then con- 
sisted of nineteen ministers — a gain of fourteen 
during a half century. This small ratio of 
increase in the number of ministers is more 
easily accounted for when it is borne in mind 
that the Church was then passing through one 
of the trial periods of its own history, as well as 
the formative period of the American Republic — 

The Revolutionary War. 

In that great struggle for a separate and equal 
station among the powers of the earth, our 
Reformed fathers were, as a rule, true to the 
cause of their adopted country. While they 
renounced the world, the flesh and the devil, 
they helped to trounce the British army. 
Among these Reformed patriots were some of 
distinction. Baron Stuben was a German and a 
ruling elder in a Reformed Church. Tradition 
and scraps of authentic history mention the 
names of Revs. John H. Weikel, C. D. Wey- 
berg, John Conrad Bucher and J. C. A. 
Helffenstein as Reformed ministers who did 
much for the struggling cause of their country 

(5) 



S3 



The Reformed Church. 



by visiting and encouraging the soldiers of the 
Continental Army. Many others, whose heroic 
deeds live in unwritten history, waxed valiant 
in fight and turned to flight the armies of the 
aliens. 

After the War. 

As already stated, the long struggle for inde- 
pendence left the Church in a desolate condi- 
tion. Instead of reviving with the dawn of 
peace, things continued to grow worse. For 
years our Reformed Zion was exposed to all 
manner of evil. In alluding to that dark period 
of general decadence, Dr. Nevin says that great 
spiritual destitution prevailed on all sides with a 
disposition to acquiesce in it as something 
proper. Increasing wealth made men covetous. 
The catechism and liturgy were held in unright- 
eousness. Rites and forms were not viewed in 
their proper character and purpose as helps to 
personal heart religion. This great spiritual 
declension approximated death itself. And yet 
the bush was not consumed. There was still a 
living spirit in many Simeons and Annas wait- 
ing and working for God's set time to favor 
Zion. These refused to bow T to the Baal of 
dead formality, and at the same time consist- 



The Dawning of a New Period. 59 

ently persisted in declining to enter the Babal 
of pietistic fanaticism whose doors then, as 
now, stood dangerously ajar to receive and 
seduce, if possible, the very elect. But those 
days were shortened by 

The Dawning of a New Period. 

In 18 1 7 a cardinal turning point was reached 
and passed. At that time the Church num- 
bered about sixty ministers and probably three 
hundred congregations. The number of mem- 
bers is not known and can only be estimated, 
as previous to that time there were no minutes 
printed, and no complete statistics tabulated 
and left on record. The first printed minutes 
appeared during that year. This forward 
movement was followed in 18 19 by a division 
of synod into eight classes, of which the Classis 
of Ohio was the one farthest west. This grand 
step in the right direction seems to have been 
conceived by a true missionary spirit. It was 
followed, as a matter of course, by an increased 
demand for a greater number and more compe- 
tent ministers. Hence a Theological Seminary 
was planned. The matter came up in the 
synod at Hagerstown in 1820. The project of 
establishing such an institution went into effect 



60 The Reformed Church. 

in 1825. The first seminary began its career in 
Carlisle, Pa., moved on to York, tarried a while 
at Mercersburg, and finally laid down its pilgrim 
staff in Lancaster. With this grand educational 
movement the Church took on a new lease of 
life and commenced to develop after a more 
heavenly pattern. Self-consciousness began to 
awaken in the Reformed bosom. Intelligent 
activity displayed itself in muscles and limbs. 
Strong and more regular pulsations of the 
throbbing heart began to send fresh life and 
blood through all the arteries. The strength- 
ening of stakes was followed by the lengthening 
of lines and the driving of other stakes. The 
Classis of Ohio became 

The Synod of Ohio. 

This body was constituted at New Philadel- 
phia, Ohio, in June, 1824. At the time of its 
organization it was composed of eleven minis- 
ters and eighty congregations. As in the East, 
there was great demand for more fully qualified 
ministers. An effort was, therefore, made as 
early as 1833 to establish a seminary west of the 
Alleghenies. In 185 1 this laudable under- 
taking w r as crowned with success. A Theolog- 
ical Seminary w r as opened in Tiffin, Ohio, in 



Other Institutions. 



61 



connection with Heidelberg College. This 
prosperous Institution has been second to no 
agency in the Church in the work of extending 
the Reformed borders. Acting in harmony as 
sister institutions, the seminary at Lancaster, 
the Heidelberg Seminary at Tiffin, the theolog- 
ical department of Ursinus College at College- 
ville, Pa., and the Mission House at Franklin, 
Wis., have already prepared and sent out about 
l, 300 ministers with seed to sow and sickles to 
harvest the ripening fields of God. 

Other Institutions. 

Besides the seminaries noticed above, the 
Church has the following educational institu- 



tions: 

Franklin and Marshall College Lancaster, Pa. 

Heidelberg College Tiffin, Ohio. 

Catawba College Newton, N. C. 

Mercersburg College Mercersburg, Pa. 

Clarion Collegiate Institute Rimersburg, Pa. 

Palatinate Collegiate Institute Myerstown, Pa. 

Juniata Collegiate Institute Martinsburg, Pa. 

Greensburg Collegiate Institute Greensburg, Pa. 

Ursinus College College ville, Pa. 

Calvin College Cleveland, Ohio. 

Allentown Female College. Allentown, Pa. 

College of Northern Illinois Dakota, Illinois. 

Pleasantville Collegiate Institute Pleasantville, 0. 

International Academy Portland, Oregon. 



62 



The Reformed Church. 



Wichita University Wichita, Kansas. 

Claremont Female College Hickory, N. C. 

Edgehill Family School Littlestown, Pa. 

Girls' School Sendai, Japan. 

Young Men's School Yamagata, Japan. 

Training School Sendai, Japan. 

Periodicals. 

The following are now regularly published 
and supported as periodicals of the Church: 

ENGLISH. 

Christian World Dayton, Ohio. 

The Heidelberg Teacher " 

Scholars' Quarterly " " 

Lesson Leaves " " 

Leaves of Light " " 

Golden Words " 

Little Pearls " 

The Messenger Philadelphia, Pa. 

The Guardian " " 

Scholars' Quarterly " " 

The Sunday-school Treasury " " 

Sunshine " " 

Reformed Church Review " " - 

Orphans' Friend Butler, Pa. 

Missionary Sentinel and Herald Lancaster, Pa. 

College Student " " 

Heidelberg Monthly Journal Tiffin, Ohio. 

Reformed Church Record Reading, Pa. 

GERMAN. 

Kirchenzeitung and Evangelist Cleveland, Ohio. 

Reformirte Hausfreund Reading, Pa. 

Der Laemmerhirte Cleveland, Ohio. 



Present Outlook. 



63 



Der Missionar Sheboygan, Wis. 

Die Abendlust Cleveland, Ohio. 

Der Kinderfreund ,San Francisco, Cal. 

Statistical Summary. 

General Synod 1 

District Synods 8 

Classes 55 

Ministers 822 

Congregations 1 ,535 

Members , 194,343 

Members unconfirmed 115,199 

Sunday-schools 1 ,498 

Sunday-school scholars 136,283 

Students for ministry ~ 250 

Orphans' Homes 4 

Periodicals 24 

Institutions of learning 23 

Missionaries and workers in the foreign field ..... 28 

Present Outlook. 

It will be seen from the foregoing statement 
of facts and presentation of authentic figures 
that the Reformed Church in the United States 
is moving forward with all the embannered 
hosts of God. During the last 70 years the 
number of its ministers has increased from 60 to 
822. This shows a gain of 762, or more than 
1,200 per cent, in two-thirds of a century. 
The increase in membership and other forms of 
growth show something like a corresponding 



6 4 



The Reformed Church. 



ratio of gain. It is now doing the work of the 
Lord in thirty states and territories at home, 
and something toward the cultivation of the 
foreign field. Its missionary* work is rapidly 
progressing. The future is full of promise. 
Especially does it so appear in the light of the 
fraternal relation between 

The Two Reformed Churches in This Coun- 
try. 

The Reformed Chureh in America and The 
Reformed Church in the United States with, the 
same confession of faith, much history in com- 
mon, as also titles which indicate a common 
origin and occupancy of the same territory, 
must have a mutual mission for the future. As 
the Rhine flows down from Switzerland through 
Germany to mingle its waters with many 
mingled currents in the broader bosom of the 
Main where all flow on together to the ocean, 
so " there is a river the streams whereof" are 
not only parallel in history, but also as abso- 
lutely inseparable as they are distinct. Who 
will say that such is not the case with the two 
organizations whose respective names appear at 
the head of this paragraph. They are not 
branches of the Holy Catholic Church in the 



Reformed Churches in this Country. 65 

same sense that that term may be properly 
applied to those Christian bodies which are 
off-shoots from the parent stem, and which are 
correctly known by their respective denomina- 
tional titles. The Reformed Church with that 
unassuming modesty which has always blended 
with and beautified its history, may say to them 
in truth and characteristic gracefulness: "Thou 
bearest not the root, but the root thee. " 
Neither is either one of these two Churches a 
branch of the other. They are streams whose 
parting and parallel on-flowings were occasioned 
for awhile by Providential orderings. It was 
not so from the beginning, and should not 
remain so unto the end. A continued separa- 
tion into the distant future would be looked upon 
as the most unnatural and unjustifiable thing in 
Reformed Christendom. It is the proper prov- 
ince of the historian to make a faithful record of 
the past rather than to either criticise the 
present or anticipate the things that must be 
hereafter. He may, however, lay aside the pen 
and read the signs of the times as a watchman 
on Mount Seir. When this is done the rosy 
hue of daylight dawns upon his raptured vision. 
These two organizations can not remain apart 



66 



The Reformed Church. 



forever. Their history shows no ecclesiastical 
act of severance looking toward separation and 
disunion. God has ordained that they should 
.be joined together, and man can neither put 
nor keep them asunder. We believe that the 
millenium of organic union is close at hand. 
In the realization of that event 700,000 mem- 
bers and adherents of The Reformed Church in 
the United States of America will join with happy 
hearts and exultant tongues to celebrate the 
grand achievement. 



CHAPTER II. 



DOCTRINE. 

History the Best Expounder of Doctrine, 

^THHE doctrines of the Church may be studied 
to best advantage in connection with the 
records of its history. In the preceding 
chapter it was shown that Zwingli and the other 
Swiss Reformers accepted nothing as true and 
binding in religion which could not be proven 
by the Word of God. With them, as also with 
Frederick the Pious, the Bible was the highest 
rule of faith and works — the supreme standard 
of doctrine and duty. It so continued through 
all Reformed history, and the Church of the 
present does not abate one jot or tittle of this 
evangelical claim. If it be asked what the 
Reformed Church holds to be the teaching of 
God's Word in all essential matters pertaining 
to human salvation, the answer is given in the 

6 7 



68 



The Reformed Church. 



contents of the Heidelberg Catechism. This is its 
apprehension of the teaching of God's Word. 
It holds the doctrine of the catechism to be the 
doctrine revealed in the Bible, and that this 
symbol of faith embraces and teaches all things 
necessary for a Christian to believe and practice. 
Strictly speaking it contains 

No Peculiar Doctrines. 

The Church of God is "a peculiar people" as 
contrasted with and distinct from the world- 
people, and the fewer the distinctive peculiari- 
ties found among God's people, the more 
peculiar they are in the Scriptural and truly 
Christian sense of that term. The same is true 
of the doctrines held by the people of God. 
Distinctive peculiarities among denominations 
are fostered and forced into prominence accord- 
ing to the measure of remoteness from Cath- 
olicity. As a rule, sects and their teachings 
are more truly peculiar than peculiarly true. 

Christianity not Based upon Doctrine. 

If there be anything distinctively peculiar in 
the Reformed apprehension of Scriptural teach- 
ings, it may be seen in its growing emphasis of 
the fact that Christianity does not ground itself 



No New Doctrine. 

in doctrine as to the essential substance of its 
being. Sound doctrine, as well as the form of 
sound words, is indispensable in thoroughly 
furnishing the man of God unto all good works, 
but all these must ever be regarded as the 
product of life — the life of Christ. In him was 
life, and the life became the light of men. It is 
true that in Christ life and truth are inseparable ; 
but man's first and deepest need is life. The 
shepherd came that the sheep might have life 
and have it more abundantly. Christian doc- 
trines can not be consistently held except as 
they are acknowledged as flowing from the 
fountain opened up in the house of David. 
There can, therefore, be 

No New Doctrine 

in the Reformed Church. The Church of 
Christ has not been xe-foiinded, but re-formed. 
This reform movement was not a restoration 
simply of the original state of the Church. It 
was " rather an actual advance of the religious 
life and consciousness" of the Church to and by 
means of a deeper apprehension of God's Word 
with all its old doctrinal principles forever 
settled in the heavens. These deeper appre- 
hensions may, to a certain extent, be new and 




7o 



The Reformed Church. 



even broader than as previously held, but there 
can be no strictly new discovery of fundamental 
truths in the Christian faith. While the Heid- 
elberg Catechism is claimed to be the best 
expression of the life and doctrine of the 
Church as apprehended in the Reformation 
period, it is also held as a new and advanced 
expression of "the faith once delivered to the 
saints." The correctness of the foregoing view 
is made more manifest in the light of the fact 
that much of the catechism is in reality a com- 
mentary upon 

The Apostles' Creed 

which had come down from the primitive age of 
Christianity voicing the faith of the Church 
along the line of history for more than a thou- 
sand years. If it, then, be asked again what 
doctrines are held and advocated by the 
Reformed Church, the answer may be correctly 
though somewhat succinctly given: The 
Reformed Church holds to all essential doctrinal 
truth as found fontally in Christ, revealed and 
recorded in the Bible, fundamentally formulated 
in the Apostles' Creed and more fully explained 
in the Heidelberg Catechism. From this it 
may be seen that any true and ultimate inter- 



Christ is Central in the System. 7 1 

pretation of the doctrine of the Reformed 
Church will lead to the conclusion that 

Christ is Central in the System. 

In the use of the above expression it is not 
meant that the doctrine of Christ's person occu- 
pies merely a central place in the midst of all 
other doctrines belonging to the plan of salva- 
tion in a sense somewhat similar to that in 
which the Kohinoor diamond might be placed 
in a jeweled cluster of less precious and less 
brilliant stones. The Reformed Church, while 
holding that Christianity is constituted after a 
plan or pattern in the Divine mind, lays empha- 
sis upon the fact that it is a system in the real 
and most organic sense of that term. Strictly 
speaking there can be no organic system which 
does not involve life. Of the Christian system, 
which incorporates the elements of the world's 
redemption, Christ is the living source and cen- 
ter. His person contains the principle of life 
from which all Christian truths and doctrines 
evolve, around which they organically revolve 
and to which they must ever make their uncon- 
scious obeisance as they pass. 

Dr. J. H. Good has given a more happy and 
practical expression to the truth of the fore- 



72 



The Reformed Church. 



going paragraph: "The catechism makes 
Christ (his person and work in inseparable 
union) central, in its theology and religious 
teachings. ... It does not make any one 
doctrine the central object of faith, but it gives 
this place to Christ himself; not to any doctrine 
concerning Christ, nor even to Christ's teach- 
ings. . . . The great object on which faith 
must fix ntself is Christ himself. ... It 
lays special stress upon a living union with 
Christ.'' The very first question ministers 
comfort to the believing child of the covenant 
by pointing him to his faithful Savior Jesus 
Christ. This beneficial relation is expressed in 
another form in Ouestion 18: 4 4 Our Lord 
Jesus Christ is made unto us wisdom and right- 
eousnes and sanctification and redemption. " 
So also in Question 20. It is there taught that 
only those have hope of salvation who are 
"engrafted into him." Question 32 teaches that 
the believer is a Christian because he is "a 
member of Christ by faith." In Question 53 it 
is taught that the believer is "a partaker of 
Christ and all his benefits. Conceding to 
Christ this centrality of position in the Chris- 
tian system, the Reformed Church is eminently 



Saved by Sovereign Grace. 



73 



consistent in teaching that man is redeemed and 

Saved by Sovereign Grace. 

" God's plan of salvation," says Dr, J. H. 
Good, ' ' is a salvation based on the free grace of 
God in CJirist Jesus " This is held and taught 
and contended for as over against pelagianism 
in all its varied forms. This arch heresy found 
its first clear utterance in Pelagius, a British 
monk of the fourth century. Among other 
false tenets belonging to his pestilential system 
he taught that children are born as pure as 
Adam was before the fall, denied the effect of 
the disobedience and fall of our first parents 
upon their posterity, claimed that men were 
sinners in such sense as to need only reforma- 
tion in their conduct, that they could accom- 
plish this by acquiring information as to their 
duty and properly exorcising the alleged free- 
dom of their wills, and that when such perform- 
ance was rendered there was merit in their 
works. These teachings were exposed by 
Augustine and others until they were con- 
demned by the early Church. Indeed, they 
were supposed to have been destroyed root and 

branch. Such, however, was not the case. As 

(6) 



74 The Reformed Cliureli. 

the Church became corrupt under the baneful 
influence of the growing papal hierarchy, pela- 
gianism was tolerated and even fostered. In 
the beginning of the sixteenth century the 
Church was fearfully pelagianized. There was 
no generally felt sense of human depravity and 
human helplessness. The imaginary stock and 
surplus of human merit were bought and sold 
and stored away in unknown quantities. It 
became so abundant on earth that cargoes of it 
were shipped into a pelagian purgatory and 
placed to the account of suffering souls. 
Against this state of things the Reformers 

O <z> 

raised the battiecry of heaven, and buckled on 
the armor of God in defense of sound doctrine 
and in the advocacy of sovereign grace in the 
salvation of the sinner. The Heidelberg Cate- 
chism, the most CEcumenical confession of that 
reformatory age, took strong and positive 
ground against the deep-rooted and alarming 
evil. This attitude of the catechism appears 
already in Question 5, which teaches that man 
is * 'prone by nature (on account of the depravity 
of his nature) to hate God and his neighbor" In 
Ouestions 7 and 8 the source and extent of this 
depravity are set forth as ' 'from the fall and dis- 



Positively Protestant. 



75 



obedience of our first parents, Adam and Eve, in 
paradise ; hence our nature is become so coiTupt 
that we are all conceived and born in sin, and, 
therefore, wholly incapable of doing any good, 
except we air regenerated by t/ie Spirit of God." 

This doctrine, as thus set forth in the Heidel- 
berg Confession, the Reformed Church has 
zealously maintained and strenuously taught 
through all the stormy years and trying vicissi- 
tudes of its history. In this defense of the 
gospel it is frequently, if not constantly, found 
necessary to buffet the popular waves of pela- 
gian sentiment in modern rationalism, as well 
as to oppose it in its old historic and Romish 
forms. So far as the Church has taken and 
maintains an attitude of opposition to the 
Roman hierarchy with all its heresies, immoral- 
ities and mummeries it is 

Positively Protestant. 

It should not be understood, however, that 
the Reformed Church is Protestant in a mere 
negative sense. True Protestantism has posi- 
tive principles for its contents. " Protestant- 
ism, " says Dr. SchafT, "runs through the entire 
history of the Church." It was the purpose of 
the Reformers to save all that was essential to 



76 



The Reformed Church. 



the true faith in the old Catholic Church, as 
well as to remove radically whatever tended to 
work an abomination or make a lie. The fun- 
damental principles of Protestantism taught in 
the Bible, from which there had been a depart- 
ure, and of which there had been a perversion 
in the Romish Church, are reducible to two: 
First: The supremacy of God's Word over all 
the traditions and reasonings of men. Second: 
The sufficiency of God's grace without the 
assistance of human merit in accomplishing 
man's salvation. The first named of these two 
principles of Protestantism is plainly taught in 
Questions 3, 4, 21, 22, 65 and 67 of the cate- 
chism. The other, which is sometimes called 
the material principle, is the doctrine of justifi- 
cation by grace alone through faith. This doc- 
trine is forcibly expressed and consistently 
taught in Questions 60, 61, 62 and 63. Espe- 
cially does the language of Question 63 ring out 
as over against the error of Romanism, as well 
as against all theories, teachings and prac- 
tices of religious humanitarianism which the 
Reformed Church is bound constantly to 
oppose: God, without any merit of mine, but 
only of mere grace, grants and imputes to me the 



Is This Grace Irresistible? 



77 



perfect satisfaction, righteousness and holiness of 
Christ; inasmuch as I embrace sncJi benefit with a 
believing heart. 

Is This Grace Irresistible? 

Upon this question the catechism maintains a 
dignified silence. "These doctrines of grace," 
says Dr. J. H. Good, "have sometimes been 
overlaid with minute, metaphysical deductions 
of reason; and these have called forth opposi- 
tion and produced a large number of sects." 
The Reformed Church is not a debating society, 
neither is the Reformed pulpit a rostrum for 
the discussion of such topics. But few Chris- 
tians are able to answer all questions that may 
be sprung out of the general subject of the 
Divine Sovereignty in its relation to human 
freedom, and they generally belong to that 
ignorant and presumptuous class of mortals 
who rush in where angels either fear or fail to 
enter. One thing is certain. The Reformed 
Church does not teach that men may not 
receive the grace of God in vain. The five 
points in Calvinism, as they are sometimes 
called, such as the mooted questions of limited 
atonement, effectual calling and others that 
belong to the same cluster of mysteries, are 



Tlie Reformed Church. 



wisely regarded as things that lie beyond the 
present horizon of the human intellect. The 
nearest approach to such deep things of God is 
found in the first and fifty-fourth questions. 
The 4 'assured confidence" of the Christian that 
he belongs to his faithful Savior, and that he 
"ever shall remain a living member of a Church 
chosen to everlasting life," is his only and 
sufficient comfort in life and death. The true 
and devout child of the Reformed Church does 
not find his comfort so much in, or draw it so 
directly from any decree or eternal purpose that 
God had or may have had concerning his salva- 
tion, as from the clearly and fully manifested 
fact that this redemption has been wrought in 
Christ, and is now at hand in all its freeness and 
fullness for all who by faith become vitally 
united with him in his mystical body, the 
Church. Hence the proper stress laid upon 
that article of the Creed in which the believer 
confesses his faith in 

4 4 The Holy Catholic Church." 

This article is not held as in the Romish 
sense which places the Church between Christ 
and the believer. Neither is the catechism in 
sympathy with the modern mere social theory 



The Word of Preaching. 



79 



which tries to make room for the believer 
between Christ and the Church, while it holds 
the latter to be a mere aggregation of believers. 
The true Reformed position is Christ in the 
believer and the believer in Christ, and both in 

m 

the Church as the mystical body of which he is 
the ever living head, and in w 7 hich the Holy 
Ghost, who dwells both in Christ and in the 
believer, takes the divine-human and glorified 
life of Christ and communicates it through the 
divinely ordained means of grace to those who 
make a proper use thereof, and who thus 
become assured that they are "very members 
incorporate, and heirs through hope of his 
everlasting kingdom, by the merits of his most 
blessed death and passion." 

The Word of Preaching. 

Strictly speaking, it can not be said that the 
fundamental importance of preaching God's 
Word is a distinctive doctrine of the Reformed 
Church; and yet it is true that this Church 
through all its history has laid distinctive stress 
upon this divinely ordained means of grace and 
salvation. It does not attempt to explain the 
connection between the Word and the Spirit, 



8o 



The Reformed Chare h. 



but to simply preach the Word in full assurance 
that the Holy Spirit's operations are connected 
with such preaching in such way and by such 
power as to work faith in the hearts of those 
who hear and heed the Divine message. It is 
held that 4 4 the Christian life is begotten in the 
believer by the Word of God, which is ever 
living, and carries in itself the power to quicken 
faith and love in the heart, by the Holy Ghost." 
Question 65 of the catechism is explicit and full 
upon this point. "The Holy Ghost works faith 
in our hearts through the preaching of the gos- 
pel." The catechism, here as at all other 
points, is fully fortified and authorized by the 
inspired Scriptures of the Word. "So then 
faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the 
Word of God." Rom. 10: 17. 

The Ordained Ministry. 

While the Reformed Church holds that the 
power of God unto faith and salvation is primar- 
ily in the Word or gospel preached, it also 
makes proper account of the ordination of min- 
isters as an indispensable part of their full 
qualification for the work of preaching. 
"How shall they believe in him of whom they 
have not heard? and how shall they hear with- 



The Ordained Ministry. 



81 



out a preacher? And how shall they preach 
except they be sent?" Plenty of room is found 
and abundant encouragement is given in the 
Reformed Church for lay teaching and evangel- 
istic work in Sunday-schools and other legiti- 
mate spheres of Christian activity, but not in 
such sense and to such an extent as to lower 
the regularly ordained ministry from its Script- 
urally authorized and distinctive position and 
purpose in the Christian economy. It is held 
that ordained ministers are ambassadors for 
Christ, and that they act in an official capacity. 
They pray and preach and beseech in Christ's 
stead. This implies an authority which even 
the most learned and pious layman does not 
possess and should not claim. Ordained and 
faithful ministers are regarded as 4 'servants, 
messengers, heralds, watchmen of Christ, 
co-workers with God, preachers of the Word, 
and stewards of the mysteries of God. The 
doctrine of the universal priesthood of believers 
as over against all Romanizing tendencies to 
priestly power is not held in such sense as to 
obliterate the distinction between such universal 
priesthood and the ministerial office in the 
Church of Christ." 



82 



The Reformed Church. 



The Gospel Sermon. 

The Church holds that the gospel sermon is 
something more than an ordinary presentation 
of the truth. This latter may be done in a 
learned discourse, theological essay or an 
address upon the beauties of morality. But a 
combination of all these would not be equiva- 
lent to a sermon in the sense that it is a message 
from God who is in Christ reconciling the 
world unto himself. The sermon is designed as 
a message of authority. The true minister 
speaks as an ambassador commissioned by the 
King Immortal to negotiate, upon certain condi- 
tions, the treaty of peace with his rebellious 
subjects. In the name of heaven men are thus 
commanded to repent. Not to repent, when 
the kingdom of heaven and the King of heaven 
are thus at hand challenging obedience to the 
righteous mandate, is to despise, not only the 
messenger and the message, but also him who 
sends the messenger with such message of 
authority and grace for the purpose of saving 
rebellious nian. 

The Pulpit Restored. 

In the Reformation the Church restored the 



The Holy Sacraments. 



83 



pulpit to its proper place in the economy of 
grace from which it had been removed by 
Romanism to give undue prominence to the 
Romish altar as the center of superstitious 
mummeries; and the Reformed Church still 
continues to maintain that the same old pulpit, 
as the representative of the prophetic function 
in the Christian ministry, the defender of the 
Christian faith and the Gibraltar of Protestant- 
ism, shall never again be removed. The dan- 
ger now threatening from an opposite and 
additional source is equally great. The wide- 
awake watchmen upon the walls of the 
Reformed Zion are not slow to discern the signs 
of the times. Rationalism and Unitarianism 
are fast drifting toward a point in history when 
they will attempt to sweep both pulpit and altar 
from the sanctuary of God to make room for a 
mere rostrum from which to proclaim a religion 
of reason, and a denial of anything and every- 
thing supernatural in the preaching of the 
Word and in 

The Holy Sacraments. 

The Reformed Church holds that the faith 
wrought in the heart of the believer by the 
preaching of the Word is strengthened or con- 



8 4 



The Reformed Church. 



firmed by the proper use of the visible tokens 
and pledges of the promises of the gospel 
usually called sacraments. During the long 
years of deepening degeneracy preceding the 
Reformation, the Romish tendency in the 
Church enlarged the list from two to seven. 
Toward the end of the twelfth century, after 
much discussion, confirmation, confession, 
extreme unction, ordination and marriage were 
included in the category. The Reformed 
Church, while admitting that some of these 
were sacred and beneficial rites, denied from 
the very beginning of its evangelical movement 
that they were sacraments according to the true 
and full idea thereof. This position it still 
maintains, not only as over against Rome, but 
also in opposition to the alleged discovery by 
some sects which admit feet washing and other 
needful things into the limited category of 
sacred ordinances. Question 68 of the cate- 
chism is very brief and clear upon this point. 
Our symbol of faith correctly assumes that no 
one but Christ, the Divine-human Head of the 
Church, has authority to institute sacraments in 
the "new covenant or testament," and then 
explicitly teaches that there are but two such, 



The Holy Sacraments. 



85 



namely, Holy Baptism and the Holy Supper. 
In Question 66 we have the Church's defini- 
tion of sacraments. They are defined to be 
"holy visible signs and seals appointed of God 
for this end, that by the use thereof he may 
the more fully declare and seal to us the 
promise of the gospel." 

The foregoing definition seems plain enough, 
and yet, until of late, there was no clear under- 
standing in the Reformed Church in the United 
States as to just what was meant by the term 
"seal" as used in the form of sound words 
embraced in the catechism. Different modes 
of Christian thought led to different apprehen- 
sions of the meaning of God's Word. This 
freedom has always been tolerated in the broad 
and liberal spirit of the catechism. Hence the 
origin and existence in the Reformed Church, 
of different and differing schools of theology, 
and consequently different theories, each one 
of which saw its own side of the whole truth in a 
manner unfavorable to a fair and impartial view 
of the other side. This state of things not only 
stimulated the Church to seek more earnestly 
after the mind of the Spirit, but also, and above 
all, his guidance toward a deeper apprehension 



86 The Reformed Church. 

of the truth in all its wholeness. That earnest 
prayer of the Church was graciously answered. 
In 1878 it seemed good to the Holy Ghost to 
lead it out of the wilderness. The General 
Synod at its triennial session in Lancaster, Pa., 
initiated a series of measures "having for their 
object the reconciliation and adjustment of exist- 
ing differences and difficulties in the Reformed 
Church. " A commission was created to con- 
sider and solemnly deliberate over all matters in 
controversy with a view to amicable adjustment. 
This commission, after solemn and prayerful 
deliberation reported to the General Synod, con- 
vened in Tiffin, Ohio, during the year of jubilee, 
1 88 1. Its report was unanimously adopted. 
The Holy Spirit's guidance was probably never 
more manifest since the day of Pentecost. The 
hour of happy and authoritative deliverance was 
made more memorable in history by the 
general and spontaneous outgivings and 
upgushings of gratitude and praise. The 
Reformed Church in the United States had 
reached a substantial agreement, not only as to 
the catechism's definition of a sacrament, but 
also upon other concomitant points involved in 
the earnest inquiry after the truth as it is in 



The Sacrament of Baptism. 



87 



Jesus. In that report, which by its adoption 
became the authoritative utterance of the 
Church, the following language is found: "We 
hold that in the use of the holy sacraments the 
grace signified by the outward signs is imparted 
to those who truly believe, but that those who 
come to these holy sacraments without faith, 
receive only the outward elements unto con- 
demnation. " 

The Sacrament of Baptism. 

The truth as expressed in the Heidelberg 
Catechism — Questions 69-74 — and held by the 
Reformed Church respecting holy baptism, lies 
between two common errors or opposite 
extremes. The one extreme or error is that 
which holds to baptismal regeneration in the 
sense that all persons externally baptized are 
consequently saved independently of any inter- 
nal washing with the blood and Spirit of Christ. 
The other and opposite error views baptism as 
a mere sign. "This view" says Ursinus, who 
was one of the authors of the catechism, "sep- 
arates things which ought not to be disjoined; 
for when we say that baptism is an external 
sign, we connect with it the thing signified. 
There is in baptism a double washing; an 



S8 



The Reformed Church. 



external washing with water, an internal wash- 
ing with the blood and Spirit of Christ. The 
internal is signified and sealed by that which is 
external, and is always joined with it in the 
proper use of baptism. This internal washing 
is again two-fold, being a washing with the 
blood and Spirit of Christ. Both are specified 
in the answer of the catechism, and may take 
place at the same time. To be washed with 
the blood of Clirist is to receive the pardon of 
sin, or to be justified on account of his shed- 
blood. To be washed with the Spirit of Christ, 
is to be regenerated by the Holy Spirit, which 
consists in a change of evil inclinations into 
those which are o-ood, which the Holv Ghost 
works in the will and heart, so as to produce in 
us hatred to sin and the desire to live according 
to the will of God. " 

The Form or Manner of Baptism. 

As stated in a preceding paragraph of this 
chapter, the Reformed Church lays distinctive 
stress upon the fact that Christianity as to its 
essential essence is grounded in life rather than 
in doctrine. It mar be added in this connec- 
tion that much less does our holv religion rest 
upon forms. It takes form according to the 



Infant Baptism. 



8g 



law of the spirit of life in Christ, but builds 
neither its reality nor its efficacy upon such 
form. The catechism is very plain in setting 
forth the Divine authority for baptism, as well 
as the design and importance of the institution, 
but does not treat specifically of the manner in 
which it may be most properly administered. 
The custom of the Church has always been to 
apply the water to the subject rather than the 
subject to the water. It is felt that the custom 
of administering the believer to the sacrament 
does violence to the symbolic character of the 
institution in which "the blood of sprinkling" 
is applied to the washing away of sin. As the 
discussion of the mode of baptism does not 
come within the scope and purpose of this 
book, the reader is referred to the elaborate 
and excellent treatise upon the subject by Rev. 
J. J. Leberman, of Louisville, O. 

Infant Baptism. 

In full sympathy with Jesus Christ, its infalli- 
ble source of authority, of whom the prophet 
bore witness that he should "sprinkle many 
nations," who himself said, "Suffer the little 
children to come unto me, forbid them not, for 

of such is the kingdom of heaven," in full 

(7) 



go 



The Reformed Chiwch. 



harmony with the general tenor of Scriptural 
teaching, and in accordance with the prevailing 
custom of Christendom in all ages, the 
Reformed Church holds that infants as well as 
adults are to be baptized. The reasons 
adduced for not excluding them from the bene- 
fits of this holy sacrament are given in Question 
74 of the catechism. The blessedness of the 
provision made by the Divine Master, and set 
forth in the catechism as extending to the chil- 
dren of believers, is esteemed by members of 
the Church, and especially by parents, in pro- 
portion to their Christian intelligence and the 
correctness of their conception of God's coven- 
ant, with all that it includes in the way of 
promises and grace-bearing ordinances. If in 
certain uncertain drifts of sentiment infant 
baptism has not received due attention, such 
neglect of duty and slighting of privilege have 
not made the promises of God of none effect to 
those who have inherited the blessings and ben- 
efits thus conferred. 

Biblical authority for infant baptism is denied 
by some. These are they who have come up 
to great controversy through servility to the 
letter, and infidelity to the Spirit of the Bible. 



Infant Baptism. 



9 1 



The same mode of deducing authority from the 
Word would leave the Church without warrant 
for its observance of the first day of the week as 
the Christian Sabbath. "We must have 
recourse," says Dr. Schaff, "to the spirit of the 
Bible which contains far more than is expressed 
by its letter; and if it thence appears that infant 
baptism is necessarily included in the very draft 
and design of primitive Christianity, we will be 
able in the total absence of proof to the con- 
trary, to arrive at tolerable certainty that it was 
actually practiced. As the apostolic Church 
was a missionary Church, the most of those 
baptized into it were grown persons. Infant 
baptism has force and meaning only in the fact 
of a parent Church already existing, and the 
presumption of Christian education, which, of 
course, could not be expected of heathen or 
Jewish parents. Thus in our day, a missionary 
begins his work with the instruction of adults, 
not with the baptism of children." 

"The long experience of the church," says 
Dr. J. H. Good, "has testified to the blessings 
of this, sacred privilege, wherever it has been 
maintained in its purity. In all the dispensations 
of God, since the creation of the world, the children 



9 2 



The Reformed Church. 



of parents in covenant with God were expressly 
included in the privileges of the covenant. (Gen. 
17: 7. Acts 2: 39). Our Savior never gave 
the slightest intimation that under the new and 
higher dispensation, which he introduced, this 
privilege was to be withdrawn. It is true that 
he did not command in express words that the 
children were to be received into covenant 
relation by baptism. But this was not neces- 
sary. This was understood of itself. The 
privilege was not withdrawn. On the contrary 
he expressly invited the children to be brought 
to him. The children of believing parents are, 
therefore, not to be regarded as heathen, but 
are entitled to be members of the Church of 
Christ." 

The Lord's Supper. 

The doctrinal position of the Reformed 
Church respecting the Lord's Supper distin- 
guishes it, probably more than anything else, 
from Romanism and Lutheranism on the one 
hand, as well as from Rationalism and bald 
Spiritualism on the other. The history of 
these distinctions dates back to the time of the 
disagreement between Zwingli and Luther and 
their common disagreement with the Romish 



The Lord' s Supper. 



93 



Church as to the nature and design of this holy 
sacrament. The Roman Church held and still 
holds to transiibstantiation, that is the change, 
by the priest, of the substance of the bread and 
wine in the Eucharist into the body and blood 
of Jesus Christ. Of course this monstrous pre- 
tention was rejected by all the Reformers. 
Luther, however, held, and legitimate Luther- 
anism still holds, to consubstantiation, w r hich, 
being interpreted, means that through the act 
of consecration by the minister, the body and 
blood of Christ is present in, with and under the 
bread and wine of the Sacrament. As stated in 
the preceding chapter of this book, this doctrine 
was rejected by Zwingli and other Reformers of 
Switzerland, and afterwards by Calvin, 
Melancthon and other distinguished Reformed 
theologians of that age. These different views 
of the doctrine of the Lord's Supper gave rise 
to the historic distinction between the Reformed 
Church and Lutheranism. Luther having per- 
sistently declined to acknowledge the existence 
of any truth outside of his own view of the 
subject, the point of divergency was reached 
with all the responsibility of the results that 
followed his schismatic action. For some time, 



94 The Reformed Church. 

therefore, Zwingli was the recognized leader on 
the Reformed side in the controversy that 
seemed to threaten the very life of Protestant- 
ism in its cradle. At first he was not able to 
seize and hold the truth as pertaining to the 
Sacrament, in all its symmetrical wholeness. 
Calvin began where Zwingli left off. The 
Reformed doctrine respecting the Supper is 
sometimes and properly called the Calvinistic 
view. This it is in the sense that Calvin was 
the leading 4 ' theological organ by which it first 
came to that clear expression under which it 
was uttered subsequently" in the Reformed 
symbolical books of that century. Among 
those books is the Heidelberg Catechism. Its 
teachings upon the subject are Reformed or 
Calvinistic as over against the Lutheran doctrine, 
as well as in opposition to Romanism on the 
one hand and low Socinianism on the other. 

The Lord's Supper is treated in the catechism 
under Questions 75-82 inclusive. This setting 
forth of Scriptural teaching upon the subject is 
all that could be reasonably desired. In these 
questions the Reformed Church speaks both its 
theology and its faith respecting the most 
fundamental facts and forces in the Christian 



The Lord' s Supper. 



95 



religion. Anyone wishing to be informed as to 
what the Reformed doctrine is, and to know 
whether it be of God, will only need to examine 
this portion of the catechism in its relation to 
the system of theology in which it stands, and 
in the light of the Scriptural proof-texts cited 
as conclusively authoritative upon the subject. 
Here we have an apple of gold in a picture of 
silver. The gold is absolutely pure; the silver 
is as free from dross as human language and 
human apprehension can be before the advent 
of absolute perfection. Throughout these 
questions "the two great aspects of the ordin- 
ance are carefully distinguished and just as 
carefully held together." The sacrifice of Christ 
once offered on the cross is kept centrally, 
clearly and constantly in view as the ground of 
pardon and peace to the believer; but at the 
same time a real union, by the Holy Ghost, 
with Christ in his present glorified state, is also 
emphasized as necessary to a saving communion 
with him unto everlasting life. The catechism 
does not teach that these truths may, can, or 
must be grasped and clearly comprehended by 
the power of the mind. Children are nour- 
ished on bread and milk without being able to 



9 6 



The Reformed Church, 



analyze the ingredients of either; neither need 
they understand the process by which such 
excellent food is prepared, through digestion, 
and converted into the nutrient parts of the 
blood for natural subsistence and growth. So 
with the children of the Lord at their Father's 
table. The important thing is that the}' be 
children bv a heavenly birth of the Word, the 
Water and the Spirit. Such have faith to dis- 
cern the Lord's body. The Reformed Church 
holds that they may, with an assured confi- 
dence, take part in the celebration of the Lord's 
Supper as the inmost sanctuary of the whole 
Christian worship, bind themselves anew with 
this pledge of his living union and fellowship 
with them to the end of time, 'while each one is 
permitted to comfort his ransomed soul with the 
excellent promise of being raised up at the 
last daw 

The following vrill include the distinctive 
points in the doctrine of this Sacrament as held 
by the Reformed Church: 

r. Its proper observance is commemorative 
of Christ's suffering and death on the cross. 

2. "Further," it is a means of grace in the 
proper use of which Christ feeds and nour- 



The Lord y s Supper. 



97 



ishes the believer's soul unto everlasting life. 

3. In this Sacrament or Sacramental trans- 
action as a means of grace, Christ is spiritually 
yet really present as the Fountain of the grace 
which he communicates to believing partici- 
pants. 

4. The believing communicant partakes of 
Christ's crucified body and shed blood as assuredly 
as he receives from the hands of the minister 
and tastes with the mouth the bread and cup of 
the Lord as certain signs of the body and blood 
of Christ. 

5. The organ through which the communi- 
cant partakes of Christ's crucified body and 
shed blood is, not the mouth of the body of the 
communicant, but faith, which is the mouth of 
the new creature in Christ Jesus. 

6. "Also, besides that," the believing com- 
municant thus becomes more and more united to 
Christ's sacred body. 

7. This strengthening of the vital bond 
between Christ and the communing believer is 
by the Holy Ghost who dwells both in Christ and 
those who are "flesh of his flesh and bone of 
his bone." 

8. " The Lord's Supper was instituted only for 



98 The Reformed Church, 

those who are truly sorrowful for their sins and 
yet trust that these are forgiven for the sake of 
Christ; who look to him for righteousness and 
salvation; who abide in the fellowship of his 
churchy and earnestly desire to possess his Spirit 
and walk in las ways. 

9. All those who come to tins Sacrament with- 
out faith receive only the outward elements tinto 
condemnation. 

10. Those who come declaring themselves 
by profession and life to be infidels and ungodly, 
receive the greater condemnation, profane the 
covenant of God and give occasion for the 
wrath of God to be kindled against the whole 
congregation when such unworthy ones are not 
excluded by 

The Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven. 

This term was used by Christ (Matthew 16: 
19), and there is, therefore, authority for its 
proper use in the catechism. It means the 
Church's authority from Christ to do certain 
things in his name. The power of the keys is 
Christ's power. It is 4 4 he that openeth, and 
no man shutteth; and shutteth and no man 
openeth." This power may and should be 
exercised by the Church only in accordance 



The Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven. 99 

with the provisions of the heavenly charter 
under which it is thus conditionally granted. 
This authority revokes itself in any attempt to 
go contrary to its provisions and beyond its 
limitations. The Reformed Church calls it the 
power of the keys because as keys are used to 
open and shut a door, so by the proper use of 
this power the kingdom of heaven is opened 
for the worthy and shut against the unworthy. 
This power is exercised by preaching the holy 
gospel. God's kingdom of grace is thus 
opened and openly witnessed to believers, that 
when they accept with true faith the promises 
of the gospel, all their sins are forgiven them of 
God for the sake of Christ's merits, and that 
they have an evangelical right to the tree of life 
and to all the blessings of God's everlasting 
kingdom. This power is also exercised w r hen 
in the preaching of the gospel it is proclaimed 
and openly witnessed to all unbelievers that 
they are excluded from the kingdom of grace 
and left under the wrath of God so long as they 
are not converted. It is also further exercised 
by Church discipline in excluding such as hold 
false doctrines and lead wicked lives from the 
communion of the Christian Church, and 



IOO 



The Reformed Church. 



thereby God himself excludes all such from the 
kingdom of Christ. 

Regeneration : Conversion. 

As the Reformation itself was, under one 
view, a new birth, a putting off the old man 
and a putting on the new, so the Reformed 
Church teaches the necessity of the new birth 
for each individual. The regenerated man does 
not by such change become another creature, 
but a new creature in Christ Jesus. In conver. 
sion the man does not say good-bye to himself 
and then turn to salute another self. While he 
puts off the old man with his deeds and puts on 
the new man, he remains the same as to the 
identity of his personal being, even as the 
Reformed or renewed Church remains the same 
Church that was born on the Day of Pentecost, 
and to which the Savior promised perpetuity, 
and protection against the gates of hell. 

The Reformed Church holds to regeneration 
in a sense that will not permit of its being 
placed in a category with a mere change of 
opinion, moral reform, legal obedience and the 
spontaneous upgushings of emotional exhuber- 
ance. The catechism is everywhere intoned 
with better music, and bases all its teachings 



Regeneration: Conversion. 101 



upon a deeper conception of the new birth. It 
is held in harmony with the doctrine of educa- 
tional-religion. By this term it is not meant that 
persons become Christians through the power 
or process of education in the sense of intel- 
lectual discipline or accumulation of knowledge* 
but that those who have been planted in the 
house of the Lord may, by Christian nurture or 
education, nourish in the courts of their God. 
This presupposes that in such there is some- 
thing to nourish, educate and unfold which did 
not receive its birth of the flesh. Thus they 
grow up, not into, but in the nurture and 
admonition of the Lord. 

The Catechism is very plain and emphatic in 
teaching both the necessity and the doctrine of 
the new birth. Already in the 8th question it 
shows that we are so corrupt as to be wholly- 
incapable of doing any good, except we are 
regenerated by the Spirit of God. Question 20 
teaches that all men perished in Adam, and 
that only those can be saved who are ingrafted 
into Christ. In Question 71 it is held to be the 
teaching of Christ that the believer is as certainly 
washed J?y his blood and spirit as he is washed 
with the water of baptism. According to Ques- 



102 



The Reformed Church. 



tion 73 the Holy Ghost calls baptism the 
"washing of regeneration" and the washing 
away of sins. In line with the foregoing teach- 
ings of the Catechism the 88th Question treats 
conversion as something so deep in its nature 
and so thorough in its workings as to define it 
"the mortification of the old man and quicken- 
ing of the new man." This quickening of the 
new man gives rise to the possibility of 

Experimental Religion. 

It is still occasionally asked by some ignorant 
and presumptuous people whether the Re- 
formed Church believes in experimental religion. 
To which question for the last time we answer, 
yes; but not in the sense that it is something to 
be experimented with, neither in the way that 
religion is dreamed of by inflated fanatics. 
Their conception and knowledge of experiment- 
al piety are too wonderful. The Church of 
Martyrs, and modesty cannot attain thereto. Its 
holiest men (Q. 1 14), while in this life have only 
small beginnings of obedience. They only be- 
gin to live according to all the commandments. 

The Reformed Church holds that the Chris- 
tian life is something broader and deeper 
than its manifestation in conscious experience. 



The Law of God. 



103 



The joyous experience of the Christian is like 
the fragrance of the rose: Its chief value consists 
in the fact that it indicates the nature of the 
flower and the garden from which such fragran- 
cies proceed. Questions 58 and 90 of the Cat- 
echism bring out the correct doctrine upon this 
point. There is no uncertain sound in the lan- 
guage by which the true member of the Church 
may speak of the hope that is within him. "/ 
now feel in my heart the beginning of eternal 
joy." "The quickening of the new man is a 
sincere joy of heart in God through Christ, and 
with love and delight to live according to the will 
of God in such good works which proceed from 
a true faith and are performed according to 

The Law of God. 

For this reason the consideration of the dec- 
alogue in detail is reserved for the third part of 
the Catechism which treats of the effects of 
grace in the life of the regenerated man. In the 
first part simply the sum of the law (Q. 4) is em- 
ployed to "bring its scattered rays to a burning 
focus" for the purpose of producing a knowl- 
edge of sin ; in the third part it is used as the 
rule of Christian obedience. There is a Divine 
thought as well as a logical order in this ar- 



104 



The Rcf Gvuicd Church, 



rangement. When the man is changed by con- 
version his relation to the law is also changed. 
The Reformed Church looks upon its true mem- 
bers as having passed from slavery to freedom; 
from fear to joy. Instead of hearing the law 
from Mount Sinai they may hear it from Mount 
Zion, and delight in the law of the Lord after 
the inward man. The true child of the Re- 
formed Church is led through the obedience of 
faith to a new life of joyous gratitude. He 
therefore tells his experience by showing forth 
the praise of him who hath redeemed him from 
all the power of the devil. This is accompanied 
by and accomplished in 

Prayer. 

The Reformed Church holds that strictly 
Christian prayer is possible only for Christians. 
It is defined by the Catechism (O. 1 1 6) as the 
chief part of thankfulness, and enjoined as nec- 
essary to a continuance of grace and the Holy 
Spirit in the believer. Thus prayer in the Re- 
formed view is both a means and a fruit of grace. 
In the character of the latter it reaches toward 
perfection, and ultimately culminates where 

'■Hope shall change to glad fruition, 
Faith to sight, and prayer to praise." 



CHAPTER III 



GOVERNMENT. 



Church Government in General. 
A LL proper Church government derives its 



Head of the Church. While this truth is 
acknowledged by all Protestants, there is not 
an exact agreement as to the most Scriptural 
manner of receiving, holding and exercising 
this derived authority. Hence we have the 
Episcopal, the Presbyterial and the Independ- 
ent orders. The latter is here mentioned only 
in brief, since it is seriously questioned by some 
whether it be an order or a disorder of Church 
government. The Episcopal order of govern- 
ment is a modified hierarchy. Its prelates 
claim to stand in the most direct line of apos- 
tolic succession. They, therefore, lay their 
hands on things by an authority not exclusively 
their own. Its advocates pretend that there is 
a real distinction between a "bishop" and a 




Christ who is the only 



(8) 



ios 



io6 



The Reformed Church. 



"presbyter;" that bishops are immensely 
superior to presbyters, and that, therefore, they 
are the bishops. The Presbyterial order is held 
by a large number of Protestants in distinction 
from papal and Episcopal on the one hand, and 
Independency or Congregationalism on the 
other. The term presbyterial is derived from 
the Greek word for elders. According to 
Scripture it, therefore, means a government by 
elders. These elders are of two classes, viz: 
those who labor in Word and doctrine and are 
called ministers^ and such as rule only and are 
called simply elders. 

The Presbyterial Order. 

The Reformed Church holds that the system 
of government most conformable in its essential 
features to Scriptural authority and early histor- 
ical precedent is the presbyterial. This term 
does not mean just the same as presbyterian. 
The presbyterial order of Church government is 
older than the Presbyterian Church. The 
Swiss Reformers drew their principles of Church 
government, as they did their theology, from 
the Holy Scriptures, and began to apply them 
more than a hundred years before the Presby- 
terian Church was organized. The Presbyter- 



The Presbyterial Order. 



107 



ians, therefore, found their excellent order of 
government already in practical operation where 
they had their distinct denominational origin, in 
the Reformed Church. 

Presbyterialism assumes and emphasizes the 
fact that there are two factors, divine and 
human, in Church government proper. It also 
holds that these two factors or elements are 
most properly related, proportioned and bal- 
anced when held and exercised presbyterially. 
While it gives Christ the pre-eminence, and 
acknowledges him as the supreme source of all 
ecclesiastical authority, it consistently maintains 
that this government is by his Word and 
Spirit, and that his governing Spirit is in the 
Church influencing and bearing witness with the 
spirits of believers, thus making God's govern- 
ment of the people a government by the people. 
In harmony with this teaching, it holds that 
Christ's governing Spirit dw r ells, not exclusively 
in an alleged papal head, neither in prelatic 
dignitaries only, but in all the members of his 
body, the Church. 

The Reformed Church, both in Europe and 
America, was peculiarly fortunate in having 
men of marked administrative ability among its 



io8 



The Reformed Church. 



organizers. Of these we may mention Lasco, 
Calvin, Lambert, Olevianus, and Michael 
Schlatter. From the beginning, the Reformed 
Church in every part of Europe was governed 
by ministers and elders chosen by the congre- 
gation, while the Lutherans were generally 
governed by superintendents appointed by the 
prince. As early as the year 1526, the presby- 
terial order presented by Lambert of Avignon, 
was adopted at the Synod of Homberg and 
introduced into the Reformed Church of Flesse. 
The historian Ranke says: ''The features of it 
are the same as those in which the French, the 
Scotch and the American Churches were after- 
wards established." There was also, as to-day, 
a regular series of Church courts constituting a 
system of government. Though this system 
has been somewhat modified to meet the cir- 
cumstances of the times, it is still the same as 
to its general features. "This order of govern- 
ment," says Dr. J. H. Good, "is Biblical, effi- 
cient, simple, and favorable to the rights of all, 
both members and ministers." 

The Constitution. 

The presbyterial order of government is set 
forth revised and in full in the Constitution of 



Members of the Church. 



109 



the Reformed Church in the United States. 
This constitution is believed to be in harmony 
with the teachings of God's Word, and has 
been ordained by the Church to be its funda- 
mental law for government, doctrine and cultus, 
and to have binding authority on all its mem- 
bers, congregations, assemblies and courts. 

Members of the Church. 

According to the constitution, all baptized 
persons under the care of the Church are mem- 
bers thereof, and subject to its government and 
discipline. All persons received into the full 
communion of the Church, whether by confirm- 
ation or on certificate, are entitled to all its 
rights and privileges. Members in good and 
regular standing in other Protestant Churches 
who apply for membership in a Reformed con- 
gregation, and who for some reason are not 
able to procure certificates, may be received by 
a renewal of their profession after such examin- 
ation and in such manner as the spiritual council 
decides most proper in each case. It is 
enjoined upon members moving from one con- 
gregation to another to obtain a certificate of 
dismissal to the congregation into whose bounds 
they move. Such certificate is valid one year. 



I 10 



Tlie Reformed Church. 



The Reformed Church expects of its mem- 
bers that they lead godly lives, be active in 
promoting the prosperity of the brotherhood, 
give special heed to the welfare of their own 
families, obey the laws and rules of life pre- 
scribed in the Word of God and in the Constitu- 
tion and enactments of the assemblies, assist by 
appropriating a sufficient portion of their means 
for the support of the gospel, be constant 
worshipers at home and in the house of God, 
and that those in full membership see to it that 
they show forth the Lord's death until he come. 

The Congregation. 

A congregation in the Reformed Church is a 
body of Christian people receiving the Heidel- 
berg Catechism as its standard of faith and 
doctrine. It is required of the congregation 
that as soon as organized it shall adopt a consti- 
tution and procure a charter, both of which 
shall be subject to approval by the classis 
within whose bounds it is located, in agreement 
with each other, and in accordance with the 
Constitution of the Reformed Church in the 
United States. Each congregation elects its 
own elders and deacons who constitute the 
consistory, which by the charter is constituted 



Church Offices. 



1 1 1 



also the Board of Trustees. To the consistory, 
as a Board of Trustees, are committed the care 
and control of the property of the congregation, 
which they hold as a sacred trust, keep in 
proper repair, and use for proper purposes. 
The congregation is either the whole or a part 
of a pastoral charge. The charge elects and 
calls its own pastor. Such pastor-elect may 
accept the call subject to the approval of and 
installation by classis. When thus regularly 
settled in a charge, the minister may remain as 
pastor of that people so long as their relation to 
each other is mutual and classis deems expedi- 
ent. 

Church Offices. 

The offices in the Reformed Church are: 

1. The Office of Minister of the Word. 

2. The Office of Professor of Theology. 

3. The Office of Elder. 

4. The Office of Deacon. 

Ministers of the Word. 

A minister of the Word is a member of the 
Church, called of Christ, and by the laying on 
of presbyterial hands and prayer, ordained and 



112 



The Reformed Church. 



consecrated to the ministry of reconciliation, to 
preach the gospel, dispense the holy sacraments, 
administer Christian discipline, and to be set 
apart to the service of Christ in his Church as 
long as he lives. 

When called by a charge and installed by a 
classis a minister becomes the pastor of such 
charge. ' As pastor it is his duty to be an 
example to believers, teach them to observe all 
divinely commanded things, feed that particular 
flock of God, keep a complete Church Register 
of all his ministerial acts in the charge and 
present a written parochial and full statistical 
report of his labors to classis at each annual 
meeting thereof. 

If compelled by age or infirmity to retire 
from the active duties of his office, the minister, 
nevertheless, retains a seat and vote in his 
classis and synod, and the right to perform 
ministerial acts within certain specified restric- 
tions. 

All ministers are upon an official equality. 
The Reformed Church recognizes no two-fold 
or three-fold order in the ministry of Christ. 
All are teaching- elders; all are presbvters; and 
all unite in denying by Scriptural authority the 



Professors of Theology. 



113 



presumptuous claim of diocesan episcopacy to 
an exclusive divine right in ecclesiastical polity, 
and the alleged official superiority of bishops 
over other ministers of Christ and stewards of 
the mysteries of God. 

Professors of Theology. 

A Professor of Theology in the Reformed 
Church is a minister of the Word elected and 
inaugurated as a professor in a theological insti- 
tution. His views must be in accord with the 
faith and doctrine of the Church, and himself in 
full approval of its mode of government, forms 
of worship and distinctive customs. Before he 
enters upon the duties of his professorial office 
he is inaugurated under the direction of the 
synod or body choosing him. At his inaugura- 
tion he is required to make a public and solemn 
affirmation of his faith and purpose in accord- 
ance with the provisions of the constitution. 

It is the duty of such professors to explain 
the Holy Scriptures and defend the pure 
doctrine of the gospel against errors. In their 
instruction to theological students they are to 
make it their chief aim to acquaint such students 
with the true sense of the sacred Scriptures, and 
prepare them to preach the gospel with power 



1 14 The Reformed Church. 

and effect. To this end they are severally 
required to give instruction in Exegetical, 
Historical, Dogmatic, and Practical Theology. 

A professor in a Reformed Seminary con- 
tinues in office during his life, unless he 
becomes disqualified for its duties by falling into 
heterodoxy or vice, or by physical or mental 
infirmity. Faithful professors, having spent 
their best days performing the duties of their 
office, may not be displaced without provisions 
for their support as their necessities may require 
and the svnod able to make. 

Elders and Deacons. 

A riding elder is a member chosen by a con- 
gregation to assist and support the pastor in the 
spiritual affairs of the Church. He is ordained 
to his office by the pastor in the laying on of 
hands and prayer. The number of elders or 
deacons in a congregation, as well as the term 
of years for which they are chosen at any one 
election, is determined* by the constitution of 
such congregation. It is the dutv of elders to 
aid the pastor in visiting the sick, and contrib- 
ute according to their ability toward the instruc- 
tion, improvement and consolation of the 
members. They are expected to be earnestly 



Licentiates. 



115 



devoted to the service of Christ. Elders and 
deacons are ordained to their respective offices 
for life. 

A deacon is a member chosen by a congrega- 
tion to gather and disburse the alms and other 
offerings of the people. The law established 
for elders applies also to the election, ordina- 
tion and installation of deacons. It is the duty 
of deacons to provide for the support of the 
pastor, look after the poor and destitute, see 
that the charities of the congregation are wisely 
applied, procure the outward elements for the 
Lord's Supper, and maintain order in the house 
of God. It is required of the deacons, as well 
as of the elders, that they be exemplary in life 
and conduct -according to Acts 6: 1-6, and 
I. Tim. 3; 8-13. 

Licentiates. 

A licentiate is a student of theology licensed 
to preach the gospel. Such license may be 
granted by either a classis or a synod after the 
applicant therefor has furnished good and satis- 
factory evidence that he is possessed of all the 
necessary qualifications for the high position 
sought. In the examination of such applicants 
particular attention is paid by the Reformed 



n6 



TJie Reformed Church. 



Church to their evidences of unquestionable 
piety, the purity of their intentions in seeking 
the holy ministry, their orthodoxy and their 
ability to teach. As a rule such persons must 
have completed the full course of study pre- 
scribed for the Theological Seminary. If the 
examination of an applicant for license to 
preach the gospel be regarded as satisfactory, 
he is supplied with a certificate after having first 
attested his adherence to the Reformed Church 
in the United States in its doctrines and disci- 
pline by publicly reading aloud before classis or 
synod and subscribing the following formula: 

" I, one of the undersigned, hereby testify, that I 
honestly and truly accept the doctrine of the Heidelberg 
Catechism as in accordance with the Word of God, and 
promise, moreover, faithfully to preach and defend the 
same. I, also, declare and promise, that I will carefully 
observe and comply with all the ordinances which now 
are, or may hereafter, be enacted by the authorities of 
the Church; and, also, that I will cheerfully and readily 
receive and submit to all their admonitions and decisions 
so long as I remain in connection with the Eeformed 
Church. 

"In testimony whereof, I hereby inscribe my name, 
the day and year written opposite to it." 
Name. . Date. 

A licentiate is permitted, under certain 

restrictions, to preach the Word; but shall 



Church Assemblies, 



117 



neither administer the sacraments, perform the 
rite of confirmation, pronounce the benediction, 
nor solemnize marriages. If not less than 
twenty-one years of age and having received an 
appointment as a missionary, or as a professor 
in an authorized theological institution of the 
Church, or a call to a pastoral charge, he may 
be ordained. 

Church Assemblies. 

The Church assemblies are: 

1. The Consistory. 

2. The Spiritual Council. 

3. The Classis. 

4. The Synod. 

5. The General Synod. 

These five constitute an ascending series of 
assemblies for the government of the Church at 
every point, carefully balancing its authority in 
such a manner as to combine freedom with 
unity. Here the rights of all are easily con- 
served, since no one's rights can be in conflict 
with the rights of others or out of agreement 
with the righteous government of the whole 
body, even as the latter is subject to the law of 
the spirit of life in Christ. 

Each one of these assemblies in the Reformed 



n8 



The Reformed Church* 



Church contains in itself legislative, judicial and 
executive functions, which may be exercised 
with its action subject to review and approval 
by the next higher assembly. When sitting in 
the exercise of judicial power the assemblies are 
church courts. 

The Consistory. 

The pastor or pastors, the elders and the 
deacons of a congregation constitute its consist- 
ory, to which the general oversight and govern- 
ment of the organization are committed. It is 
the privilege and duty of the consistory to elect 
delegates, primarius and secondus, to represent 
the charge in the higher assemblies of the 
Church. In calling a minister and in all 
matters of general interest, the consistory deter- 
mines nothing conclusively without the consent 
of a majority of the members of the congrega- 
tion or charge. 

The Spiritual Council. 

The pastor and the acting elders constitute 
the spiritual council to administer the spiritual 
affairs of the congregation. It is the duty of 
this council to watch over the members of the 
congregation, guard the doctrines of Christ, 



C las sis. 



119 



admit members to full communion, exclude 
therefrom any who may be found to have erred 
from the faith or offended in morals, and furnish 
members in good and regular standing who may 
apply for dismissal, with certificates to any 
other orthodox Protestant Church. 

Classis. 

This term means nearly the same as presbytery 
in the Presbyterian branch of the Reformed 
Church. Classis consists of the ministers resid- 
ing within a district designated by the synod, 
and of the elders delegated by the pastoral 
charges situated within these limits, and has 
jurisdiction over said ministers and pastoral 
charges. After religious services at the open- 
ing of its annual session, classis reconstitutes 
itself for the work of the year by the election of 
a president and other officers necessary for the 
proper transaction of its business. At these 
annual meetings classis receives parochial 
reports from the ministers within its bounds 
pertaining to their labors during the past year 
and the state of morals and religion in their 
respective charges, and hears statements by the 
delegated elders upon any matter that pertains 
to the affairs of the charges they respectively 



120 



The Reformed Church, 



represent. Upon the basis of information thus 
obtained a report on the state of religion is 
made by the classis to the synod within whose 
bounds it is situated. 

The Constitution of the Church invests each 
classis with the power to examine and license 
students of theology, ordain licentiates, consti- 
tute or dissolve pastoral relations, dismiss minis- 
ters and licentiates, depose or otherwise 
discioline according to his desert a member of 
its own body, and reinstate, upon trustworthy 
evidence of repentance and reformation, a min- 
ister whom it has suspended or deposed. A 
classis may review congregational records, hear 
and decide all cases of reference, complaint and 
appeal, as well as all questions respecting minis- 
ters or congregations, which may arise within its 
jurisdiction, and are regularly brought before it. 

It is also the dutv of classis to act on all such 
matters as are handed down for that purpose by 
the synod, and upon all ordinances and consti- 
tutional amendments that have been approved 
and referred by the General Synod; to elect 
delegates to the higher assemblies, and through 
its stated clerk furnish synod and the General 
Synod with a certified copy of all its proceedings 



The Synod. 



121 



subject to review by or having reference to 
these higher assemblies. 

The Synod. 

A synod is composed of four or more 
adjacent classes. It meets annually, either in 
convention or as a delegated body. If in con- 
vention, it consists of all its ministers and one 
elder from each pastoral charge; if as a dele- 
gated body, it consists of the ministers and 
elders chosen by its classes, according to a 
basis of representation adopted by itself. The 
annual sessions are opened with divine service, 
after which the organization is effected and the 
business transacted according to the rules of 
order prescribed by the General Synod. 

A synod has jurisdiction over the classes of 
which it is composed similar to that which the 
classis has over the consistories within its 
bounds. This jurisdiction includes power to 
examine and license students of theology, 
ordain licentiates, hear and determine com- 
plaints and appeals, establish new classes within 
its own limits, and determine all controversies 
between classes, and between ministers and 
congregations of two or more classes. It may 

establish and maintain colleges and other lit- 

(9) 



122 



The Reformed Church. 



erary institutions, and with the consent of 
General Synod, establish a Theological Semin- 
ary. A synod may also establish and main- 
tain a Board of Publication, whose particular 
purpose shall be the publication and sale of 
church papers and religious books. To the 
synod also pertains the duty of educating 
pious young men for the gospel ministry, as 
well as prosecuting the cause of church exten- 
sion and the work of home and foreign missions. 

General Synod. 

This body is the general assembly of the first 
born Church of the Reformation. It represents 
the whole Church, and is composed of ministers 
and elders delegated by classes. The ratio of 
representation is fixed by the constitution. It 
is the highest court and the last resort on all 
questions concerning the government, doctrine 
and cultus of the Church. 

The General Synod meets triennially and 
opens its sessions and transacts its business in a 
manner similar to that prescribed for the synod. 
It reviews the proceedings of the synods, 
determines complaints and appeals, and may 
maintain correspondence with sister Churches. 



Discipline. 



123 



Through boards elected for that purpose it has 
the general management of the work of home 
missions and foreign missions, and may, when 
deemed necessary, examine into the doctrine, 
cultus and management of any one or all of the 
Theological Seminaries of the Reformed Church 
in the United States. Furthermore, all pro- 
posed ordinances or changes in the ordinances 
of the Church, such as the constitution, a cate- 
chism, a hymnbook, and a liturgy, must be 
approved by the General Synod. Such action 
of approval must, however, be submitted to all 
the classes for final approval, after which the 
proposed ordinance or change of ordinance has 
binding authority in the whole Church unless 
negatived by more than one-third of all the 
classes. 

Discipline. 

Christian discipline is the exercise of the 
authority and the application of those laws 
which Christ has established in his Church, to 
preserve its purity and honor, and promote the 
spiritual welfare of its members. The following 
includes all the points of primary importance 
pertaining to the discipline of the Reformed 
Church in the United States: 



124 



The Reformed Church. 



1. Its discipline is spiritual. Nothing is 
admitted as matter of accusation, or considered 
an offense which can not be proved to be such 
from the Scriptures or the regulations of the 
Church, which are founded upon Scriptural 
authority. 

2. The following sins especially claim the 
attention of the Church Courts and merit 
discipline: Heresy, blasphemy, schism, per- 
jury, fornication, adultery, fraud, contentious- 
ness, intemperance, gross profanation of the 
Lord's Day, and any other offenses against the 
Ten Commandments. 

3. Discipline is exercised by admonition, 
censure, erasure of names, suspension, deposi- 
tion and excommunication. 

4. All members of the Church, confirmed 
or unconfirmed, and all ministers, elders and 
deacons are subject to discipline. 

5. Judicial proceedings against persons 
charged with being offenders can be instituted 
only on accusation of a communicant member, 
or a judicatory finding it necessary to invest- 
igate an offense. 

6. Prosecution in personal matters is not 
allowed, unless those means for reconciliation 



Discipline. 



125 



have been tried, which are required by our 
Lord, Matthew 18: 15-17. 

7. Trials are conducted in open or secret 
session as the court may determine. 

8. In the examination of witnesses and pre- 
sentation of the law and the evidence, the rules 
of the common-law courts are followed as nearly 
as possible. 

9. All persons of sufficient intelligence, 
whether parties or otherwise, are competent 
witnesses, except such as do not believe in the 
existence of God, or a future state of rewards 
and punishments. 

10. No sentence of excommunication of a 
member, suspension or deposition of a minister, 
elder or deacon from office, is valid, except by 
concurrence of two-thirds of the members of the 
judicatory voting, and the announcement of the 
decision and passing of the sentence by the 
president in open court. 

1 1 . Any member of the Church, in good 
and regular standing, has the right of complaint 
against private individuals, Church officers and 
Church judicatories, 

12. Such complaints must be made and 



126 



The Reformed Church, 



disposed of .according to the directions of the 
constitution. 

13. The decision of a court in a case of 
complaint, or in a judicial case, may be 
appealed to the next higher court. 

14. Such appeals must be based upon stated 
reasons which the constitution recognizes as 
good and sufficient. They must also be made, 
heard and decided in the manner prescribed by 
the constitution. 

15. Members of the Church, deacons, elders 
and licentiates who are under discipline may be 
reinstated when the evidence of their repentance 
and amendment is satisfactory. 

16. A minister deposed for any offense that 
affixes a public scandal to his character, which 
no after-repentance can remove, may not be 
reinstated; and in no case is a minister's rein- 
statement final until it is approved by synod. 



CHAPTER IV. 



CULTUS AND CUSTOMS. 

The True Idea and Meaning of Cultus. 

r T^HE term cultus in Reformed literature and 
I usage expresses the full idea of Christian 
worship. Heathens, Jews and Moham- 
medans worship, but their worship is not cul- 
tus. Cultus includes that worship which is 
made possible by, and in which the soul of the 
Christian co-operates with those heavenly 
powers which, through the incarnation of Christ 
and the gift of the Holy Ghost, are brought 
unto him and into him, and made to surround 
him in the covenant of grace. This, of course, 
implies an order of life with factors and forces 
not found in the world as naturally constituted. 
Whether we call it the kingdom, the covenant 
or the Church of God, it is a real community 
with members, means and powers at hand for 
the accomplishment of the purpose for which it 
was ordained. This order of life includes all 

127 



128 The Reformed Church. 

time, and with expanding portals makes room 
for every age, and all the proper relations of 
life. It embraces the Christian family, includ- 
ing the little ones of believers in this fellow- 
citizenship with the saints. "Else were your 
children unclean but now are they holy." Infant 
baptism is recognitiatory of this holy covenant 
relation, as well as the sacrament of their 
admittance into the Christian Church. Starting 
with a recognition of such a blessed relation in 
the Christian family, the whole order of Chris- 
tian cultus is but one grand system of super- 
natural powers and devout doings culminating 
in the proper observance of the Lord's Supper 
as the inmost sanctuary of the whole Christian 
worship. 

Private Devotion. 

The Reformed Church has always laid stress 
upon the importance of personal piety. The 
individual Christian does not belong to the 
communion of saints in such sense as to lose his 
individuality in a general aggregation of 
believers. Emphasis is laid upon the fact that 
each member of Christ's body holds communion 
by the Holy Ghost directly with his Savior. 
The Lord is his sheoherd. This relation is the 



Family Religion. 



129 



ground of private devotion and the encourage- 
ment thereto. Hence the Master's command 
to enter into the closet and shut the door. 
Those who thus wait upon the Lord renew 
their spiritual strength. No Christian can 
expect to be rewarded openly who is not seen 
of the Father in secret. 

Family Religion. 

The reward obtained in private devotion is 
openly manifested first in the Christian family. 
There is no richer blessing on earth than the 
possession of a pious household. The vials of 
Divine wrath are never emptied with more 
terrible rebuke than when Jehovah pours out 
his fury upon the families that call not upon his 
name. Happy is the parent who can say with 
the Apostle John: "I have no greater joy than 
to hear that my children w r alk in the truth." 
To walk in the truth, children must be 
instructed therein. This is a part of that 
nurture and admonition of the Lord enjoined by 
the Apostle Paul. It is accompanied with fam- 
ily worship, which is commended by the consti- 
tution of the Church, urged from every pulpit, 
practiced in the holiest and happiest families, 



130 



The Reformed Church. 



and belongs to that grand system of educational 
religion which is carried forward in 

The Sunday-School. 

For more than three hundred vears the 
Reformed Church has advocated Sundav-schools 
by practically engaging in the blessed work; 
and it is now quite pleasurable to notice and to 
note the fact that Protestant Churches generally 
are following the good example. The Heidel- 
berg Catechism is an old Sunday-school book. 
Next to the Bible it is the Church's book of 
4 4 instruction in righteousness." As such it was 
at a very early date arranged into fifty-two 
lessons corresponding with the number of Sun- 
davs in the year. 

The Sunday-school in the Reformed Church 
is regarded as an organic part of the Church, 
and its doings a very important part of the 
Church's most reasonable service. The Sun- 
day-school is one of the educational institutions 
of the Church. Its primary mission is, not to 
supersede, but to supplement and co-operate 
with the Christian family in bringing up the 
children in the nurture and admonition of the 
Lord, and as far as practicable serve as a 
nursing mother in families that are not Chris- 



Catechetical Instruction. 131 

tian. The service usually consists of singing, 
prayer, responsive Scripture readings, repetition 
of the Apostle's Creed, study of the Word, 
almsgiving, distribution of religious literature, 
closing with the Lord's Prayer in which all are 
urged to unite in a unison of devout hearts and, 
as far as possible, a harmony of cultured voices. 
In this way the work of the school ranks in 
comparative importance with 

Catechetical Instruction. 

"As the Reformed Church of Switzerland," 
says Dr. Harbaugh, " produced the first 
Reformed catechism, so to it belongs also the 
honor of taking the lead in introducing the 
catechetical system into the Reformed Church 
generally." This system is still in practice in 
the Reformed Church in the United States. 
Its superior excellency is valued by pastors and 
congregations in exact proportion to their 
acquaintance with the distinctive cultus of the 
Church, and their respect for its time-honored 
customs. Catechetical instruction as imparted 
in the Reformed Church, avoiding formality on 
the one hand and mere religious sentimentalism 
on the other, aims to build the catechumen 



132 



The Reformed Church. 



upon the foundation of the prophets and the 
apostles, Jesus Christ himself being the chief 
corner stone in whom all the building is fitly 
framed together. Such catechization begins 
and proceeds upon the assumption that baptized 
children have already been engrafted into the 
church, and are, therefore, to be prepared for 
membership in full communion. As soon as 
they are old enough and sufficiently advanced 
in knowledge to understand the nature and 
realize the binding sanctity of religious obliga- 
tions, they are formed into classes for instruc- 
tion in Christian doctrine and duty according to 
the Word of God as systematized and simplified 
in the catechism. Into these classes unbaptized 
persons are also invited and admitted with a 
view to their conversion and baptism. Such 
catechization involves the preaching of the 
gospel in form and manner best adapted to the 
capacity of the hearers and their respective 
relations to the kingdom of God thus at hand 
and thus offered with all its saving powers. If, 
by the gracious influence of the Holy Spirit, 
through the faithful instructions of the minister, 
any of them give evidence that the truth has 
made a proper impression upon their minds and 



Confirmation, 



133 



hearts, they are admitted by the spiritual 
council to 

Confirmation. 

The Reformed Church retains confirmation, 
not as a sacrament, but as a solemn and benefi- 
cial rite. It is always preceded by an audible 
and public profession of faith on the part of 
each catechumen. After reverently presenting 
themselves, the minister addressses them upon 
the general nature of the rite about to be 
administered, and then continues according to 
the Directory of Worship: 

Dost thou now, in the presence of God and of this 
congregation, renew the solemn promise and vow made 
in thy name at thy baptism? Dost thou ratify and con- 
firm the same, and acknowledge thyself bound to 
believe and to do all those things which thy parents 
undertook for thee? 

Am. I do. 

Dost thou renounce the devil with all his wavs and 
works, the world with its vain pomp and glory, and the 
flesh with all its sinful desires? 

Am. I do. 

Profess now your faith before God and this congrega- 
tion. 

I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of 
heaven and earth ; and in Jesus Christ his only begotten 
Son our Lord ; who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, 
born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, 
was crucified, dead and buried ; he descended into. 



154 



The Reformed Church. 



bade?: the third day he rose from the dead: he 
ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of 
God the Father Almighty: from thence he shall come 
to judge the quick and the dead. 

I believe in the Holy Ghost : the Holy Catholic 
Church; the communion of saints: the forgiveness of 
sins; the resurrection of the bodv, and life everlasting. 
Amen. 

Then follows confirmation proper, which con- 
sists in prayer and the laying on of hands by 
the minister. The persons confirmed are thus 
formally consecrated to the service of Christ. 

The practicing of this religious rite is fully 
warranted by examples on record both in the 
Old and New Testament Scriptures. It was 
first observed by devout parents upon their 
children, whereby the}* imparted unto them the 
parental blessing, and confirmed them in faith 
and piety. Gen. 48: 14. By the laying on 
of hands also such as were called to the public 
ministry in the Church were invested with the 
authority and grace of the sacred office. Xum. 
27: 22, I. Tim. 4: 14. So also by the same 
solemn act, the apostles communicated the gift 
of the Holv Ghost for the confirmation of 
believers after their baptism. Acts 19: 5—6. 
Indeed, so generally was this rite practiced 
among God's most devout people that it was 



Ptiblic Worship. 



135 



classed by the writer to the Hebrew with those 
doctrines of Christ which involved the 4 'first 
principles" of his religion. Heb. 6: 2. 

Public Worship. 

Public worship in the Reformed Church is 
primarily neither an exercise nor an entertain- 
ment, but a most reasonable service, in which 
all things are done unto edifying, while the 
hearts of the worshipers are lifted up unto the 
Lord. It blends the freedom of the gospel 
with obedience to the law of harmony. Com- 
bining simplicity with all that is orderly and . 
truly grand in devotion, the Reformed Church 
avoids wild confusion on the one hand and all 
pretentious display on the other, while it aims, 
"as in all the Churches of the saints," to offer 
up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God 
through Jesus Christ. 

The Lord's Day service consists of an invoca- 
tion, singing of a hymn or psalm, reading of 
the Scriptures, prayer, singing of another hymn 
or psalm, sermon, prayer, giving of alms, sing- 
ing, doxology and benediction. These services 
are conducted according to the Directory, 
which, not only prescribes full forms for all 
sacramental occasions, but also provides a full 



The Reformed Church 



service and a partial one for the public worship 
of God on the Lord's Day. While free prayer- 
is allowed by those who prefer it, no order of 
worship may be observed, and no selection of 
hymns used, unless approved or recommended 
by the General Synod. 

During the time of prayer in the usual ser- 
vice of the sanctuary, the congregation observes 
the standing attitude. The few exceptions to 
this rule may be classed with the infirm, the 
indolent or the apish. 

Festival Davs. 

The chief festivals of the Church are Christ- 
mas, Good Friday, Easter, Ascension, Pente- 
cost and Trinitv Sundav. These davs or 
seasons are usually observed, and with great 
spiritual benefit by those who religiously 
improve them by a thoughtful and devout 
study of the leading and saving events in the 
life of Christ, upon whose person and work the 
whole of the Christian's salvation depends. 
The public and religious observances of these 
festival periods are sometimes either preceded 
or followed by a series of special services which 
are not unfrequently seasons of genuine revival 
in the congregation, and also occasions of 



The Prayer- Meeting. 



137 



ingathering from the world under the preaching 
of the gospel. 

The Prayer-Meeting. 

When circumstances permit, and when other 
duties do not prevent, the congregations of the 
Reformed Church are wont to observe stated 
seasons of social prayer. In these meetings 
devotion and sociality combine their sacred 
powers for the mutual benefit of all. These 
services are usually opened and led by the 
pastor or some other person able to edify. 
They are enjoyed and encouraged in proportion 
to the genuine spirituality of the congregation. 
Two or three harmoniously assembled in the 
name of Christ have the promise of the Divine 
presence and blessing. 

Sacramental Rules and Customs. 

The possibility and acceptability of all truly 
Christian worship depend upon the covenant 
relation of the worshiper to God. Hence the 
stress laid by the Reformed Church upon the 
use and the proper use of the sacraments. 
These holy visible signs and seals appointed of 
God are not administered indiscriminately by 
any means. The proper conditions are insisted 

(10) 



138 



The Reformed Church, 



upon. These conditions are called for by the 
very nature and design of the sacraments in 
order to be of spiritual benefit to those who 
make use thereof. 

Children are baptized upon the faith and 
vows of Christian parents or those whom the 
Constitution recognizes as qualified sponsors. 
A child may be admitted to baptism when 
either one of its parents is a member of the 
Church, but if neither of them be such, it must , 
remain for the present unbaptized, unless there 
be an expressed desire and promise on the part 
of at least one of the parents to unite with the 
Church at the very earliest opportunity. 
Except for good and sufficient reasons, baptism 
is administered publicly in the Church. 

The Lord's Supper is administered in each 
congregation at least twice a year. The com- 
municants reverently surround the chancel by 
companies or groups, and while in a standing 
attitude receive the outward elements from the 
hands of the minister. 

A preparatory service is held, usually on the 
preceding day, and the names of the communi- 
cants recorded. It is the duty of all members 
to be prepared for this solemn sendee, and all 



Christian Burial. 



139 



are admitted thereto, except such as are 
excluded by the spiritual council for having 
departed from the faith, doctrine or practice of 
the Church. 

Members in good standing in other denomin- 
ations holding the essential doctrines of the 
gospel, are invited to unite in the observance of 
this holy ordinance. The pastor or elders of 
the Church may convey the consecrated 
elements to those of the congregation whose 
infirmity or sickness prevents them from going 
to the house of God. 

Christian Burial. 

Members of the Church, having departed this 
life in the faith and hope of the gospel, are 
honored with a Christian burial. In arranging 
for the funeral the pastor is consulted as to the 
time most convenient to himself and most 
proper under all the circumstances for the 
observance of the solemn rites. The under- 
taker is next seen and the friends are then 
informed authoritatively as to the hour and 
place for the service. In this way all confusion 
is avoided. This excellent rule is observed in 
all the considerate families of the Reformed 
Church. 



140 The Reformed Church. 

The burial service is conducted according to 
the Directory of Worship, which provides for a 
short sermon or exhortation. The sermon 
usually contains some words of comfort to those 
who sorrow not as others who have no hope. 
Reference to exemplary traits in the character 
of the deceased is considered as falling within 
the compass of Christian propriety. As a rule, 
Reformed ministers are not given to sprinkling 
eulogistic flowers upon the coffin-lids of 
departed saints, and yet they do not pretend to 
be more circumspect in such matters than the 
" voice from heaven" which never hesitates to 
say: 4 'Blessed are the dead which die in the 
Lord from henceforth: yea saith the Spirit, that 
they may rest from their labors," followed by 
their 

Good Works. 

The Reformed Church does not regard good 
works in the Romish sense as possessed of 
saving merit. Besides being testimonials of 
faith and fruits of thankfulness, they are viewed 
as among the best evidences of incipient con- 
formability to the Divine law on the part of 
those who themselves are created in Christ 
Jesus unto good works. Christian faith, 



Women's Missionary Societies. 141 



acceptable worship and good works are logically 
related and inseparable. As a rule, neither one 
can exist or be performed without the other 
two. Consistently holding and practicing these 
principles of evangelical truth, the Reformed 
Church has neither been barren nor unfruitful 
in the vineyard of the Lord. Unassuming in 
their pretentions, and unaccompanied by the 
blowing of trumpets, these deeds of love for 
the Master and for the promotion of his cause 
will doubtless be made manifest in that day 
when every man's work shall be tried of what 
sort it is. 

Besides the results of individual efforts, the 
Church is doing much organized work in a very 
efficient manner. No societies in and of the 
Church are organized for general Church work 
without the approval of the General Synod, 
Among these are the 

Women's Missionary Societies. 

The Reformed Church, recognizing the office 
of deaconess as it existed in the apostolic 
Church, and as afterwards re-affirmed by the 
reformers of the sixteenth century, consistently 
authorizes and encourages its female members 



ij\.2 The Reformed Church. 



to organize themselves into missionary bands 
or societies in such manner as to them may 
seem most proper. These societies are quite 
numerous and influential for grood. Thev are 
congregational, classical and synodical, all cul- 
minating in the Women's Missionary Society, 
embracing the entire field of the General Svnod. 
They are conducted to the mutual edification of 
their members, and in such way as to enlist the 
sympathies and secure the co-operation of many 
of the best women in the church in behalf of 
the great work which they are helping to do. 
They pay their monies into the common 
treasuries of the General Synod's Board, while 
they retain the right to indicate the particular 
mission or object of their charities. A consid- 
erable portion of the funds thus raised by the 
women of the Reformed Church, have so far 
been appropriated to the maintainance of the 
Girls' School in Sendai, Japan, where some of 
the more fully qualified and consecrated of their 
sex are now at work in their noble efforts to 
rescue their degraded sisters from the low estate 
of sin and death and raise them to the higher 
plane of Christian civilization on earth, and the 
hope of immortal blessedness in heaven. 



Temperance and Intemperance. 143 

Temperance. 

Looking upon intemperance as one of the 
forms in which the depravity of fallen human 
nature manifests itself, the Reformed Church is 
earnestly and assiduously engaged in applying 
the remedy which has been provided by Divine 
wisdom and goodness for the permanent cure of 
this terrible evil. That remedy the Church 
finds in the gospel as the power of God unto 
salvation from every vice that unregenerated 
humanity is heir to. It holds that no other 
power can save man thoroughly and make him 
every whit whole. Indeed, the Church is so 
fully aware of the enormity of this prevailing 
vice, and so radical in its views as to the proper 
remedy and treatment thereof, that it admits no 
one into membership until he takes the pledge 
and binds himself by the most solemn vows of 
God to live soberly and righteously in this 
present evil world. 

Concerning the effects of the evil of intemper- 
ance as they loudly call for sanitary treatment 
and for the protection of society and property 
from the ruthless ravages of this vice, the 
Church fosters a strong and growing sentiment 
in favor of such change In the organic laws of 



144 



The Rcfoi'med Church. 



this country as shall, if practicable, prohibit the 
manufacture and sale of all alcoholic stimulents 
as beverages. In this relation to the moment- 
ous question the Reformed Church is eminently 
consistent. It has long since executed judg- 
ment in the house of God. Distillers, brewers 
and bibbers are not found among its bright and 
shining lights. Neither is this increasing con- 
dition of spiritual healthfulness promoted by 
ecclesiastical legislation upon the subject. The 
vigorous workings of the Church's life carries 
all such unassimilable substance to the surface, 
and healthful discipline ejects it from the body. 
This is done not so much by an occasional great 
effort as by the constant workings of a great 
power. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ, 
wherever it is permitted to do its perfect work, 
makes and keeps each Christian congregation 
free from the law of such great sin and death. 
No man engaged in manufacturing or vending 
intoxicants is welcomed or wanted at the com- 
munion table of the Reformed Church. So far 
as known, it has no saloon keepers' name on 
the long list of its membership. If by some 
oversight or pandering there be such a mon- 
strous anomaly somewhere retained in the 



■Customs not Folloived. 



145 



Church that once sealed its purity by the blood 
of martyrs, all parties connected with such 
crime had better hasten to take a large dose of 
repentance or look out for the thunder and 
lightning of the wrath to come. 

The following was adopted by the General 
Synod of the Reformed Church in the United 
States at its last triennial session with respect to 
this subject: 

Resolved, That we view with profound regret 
and sorrow the great evil of intemperance, and 
especially its sad and deadly fruits, crime, pov- 
erty, and temporal and eternal death, and that 
we here and now, before God and the nation, 
record our protest against it, and earnestly call 
upon our synods, classes and churches to unite 
with us in zealous and persistent Christian 
efforts, looking towards its speedy extermin- 
ation. 

Customs not Followed. 

For good and sufficient reasons the Reformed 
Church does not indulge in such carnal practices 
as those which helped to make the Reformation 
necessary. It does not forget the correctness 
of the general principle that similar combina- 
tions of facts and forces produce like results. 



146 



The Reformed Church. 



Though history may not literally repeat itself, 
God is still in history, and will repeat the 
vindication of his own insulted majesty when- 
ever the same excess of riot in the most highly 
favored portion of his dominion calls for 
another revolution in the Church or a catastro- 
phe for the world. Aiming to avoid false 
doctrines, the Reformed Church is also deter- 
mined to shun corrupt and silly practices. 
With one eye of vigilance toward Rome, it also 
casts a constant glance of suspicious attention 
in the direction of rationalism and religious 
sentimentality. It has no more admiration for 
gorgeous ritualism on the one hand than it has 
for gushous ranterism on the other. Others 
may possibly feel secure, but the Church of the 
Reformation realizes that there are tendencies at 
work, even in our blessed Protestantism, that 
indicate danger either of a relapse or of false 
progress. 

What does the present state of Christendom 
portend? Is there not danger of another 
radical though gradual departure from the faith 
and practice of primitive Christianity? Is there 
no reason to fear another entangling alliance 
between the Church and the world? Those 



Customs not Followed. 



H7 



who read and discern the most ominous signs 
of the times see a tendency in our most popular 
types of religion toward a compromise with the 
empire of whitewashed darkness. 

The history of the Church preceding the 
Reformation is full of warning to Protestants 
not to pass that way. How is that warning 
now heeded? Is there not already a general 
demand for Zwingli, Luther and Calvin to 
re-appear upon the stage of the world's great 
theater? What was the practical culmination 
of the carnival in Rome's pre-Reformation his- 
tory? Was not the lucrative sale of indulgences 
the audacity of her crime? Was it not this 
monstrous traffic in sanctioned sin that fired 
the zeal of Zwingli in Switzerland and Luther in 
Germany? And are not many Protestants now 
repeating the great crime which once treated 
the salvation of the human soul as a merchan- 
dise, and turned the temples of God into 
theaters of amusement? What is the meaning 
of Church fairs, religious gambling and pious 
trickery resorted to by so many congregations 
who thus sell the Master for even less than 
thirty pieces of silver? 

It is claimed that amusements are not neces- 



The Reformed Church. 



sarily evil. Granted. But did Christ ordain 
the Church to furnish the world with amuse- 
ments? Should the King's daughter, 4 'all 
glorious within," become a beggar's fool? It is 
claimed that monev must be raised to meet the 
wants of the Church. Yerv true. But has the 
Church of Christ no legitimate resources or 
revenues that it must pander to the animal side 
of human nature in order to raise a reasonable 
tribute for the Kino; of Glorv? It has less need 
of money than it has to possess and practice 
consistency, purity, self-denial and that most 
excellent gift of heaven-born charity without 
which all its deeds and all its dollars are abom- 
inable in the sight of God, and worthless in the 
work of advancing; his kingdom in the world. 
It is possible for Churchanity with great evan- 
gelical pretentions to be substituted for Chris- 
tianity. When such is the case, men are in 
danger of listening to the siren-song of false 
religion until they rock themselves to sleep in 
the cradle of a fatal delusion. Heaven have 
mercy upon the congregations that are now 
prostituting religion to the making of money 
and amusement! 

The Reformed Church has no use for such 



Customs not Follozved. 



149 



methods. It yet retains too many of the battle 
scars received in rescuing the faith once deliv- 
ered to the saints to be seduced by any such 
instigations of the world, the flesh or the devil. 
Besides, the Church of the Reformation has 
holier enjoyments for its children. It has no 
need for an idiotic neck-tie party to furnish 
amusements. These are left to be managed by 
the warden of the penitentiary who usually 
suspends the principal actor in the performance, 
and in so doing sets an example that all Church- 
wardens would do well to follow. Neither is it 
so destitute of sociability that it needs to culti- 
vate that grace by turning the house of prayer 
into the tail end of a theater that the holy and 
peculiar people of God may listen to the mock- 
ing bird of "crazy suppers" and carnal carous- 
ings. Out upon such babboonery among the 
saints ! The Reformed Church is rich in all the 
essential elements of sociability, and full of the 
means of healthful entertainment for the con- 
sistent disciples of Christ; but it has no room 
for mum-socials, bean jugglery or any other 
form of religious dissipation that worketh an 
abomination or maketh a lie. If any of its 
members have fellowship with such unfruitful 



150 



The Reformed Church. 



works of darkness, they have not yet departed 
far enough from Egypt to have lost their relish 
for the garlic and leeks that grow in the valley 
of the world's dark Nile. 

Fraternal Relations. 

The Reformed Church is not narrowhearted; 
neither does it claim to surpass all others in 
holding "the principles of the doctrines of 
Christ. " Such pretention is not necessary to 
maintain its precedence in Protestant Church 
history, and to enjoy the peculiar felicity of 
possessing a title which is as significant as it is 
unsectarian. It believes in an ecclesiastical 
brotherhood as broad as the intercessory prayer 
of the one great Master; and holds that this 
brotherhood does in fact and should in form 
include all who are " called to .be saints." 
Having a direct lineal descent, and also by 
inheritance a broader name than other Protest- 
ant bodies, it can well afford to consider any 
interdenominational movement that may have 
for its object a higher unity in all essential 
things. 

The union of all the Churches is both desira- 
ble and attainable. Any other view of the 
matter would be out of harmony with the spirit 



Fraternal Relations. 



and history of the Church which never became 
a denomination by any act of its own. The 
Church of the Reformation neither legislated 
itself into ecclesiastical being nor organized 
itself into a distinct body. It was born. The 
subsequent organization of other separate 
bodies compelled the Reformed Church to 
assume the appearance of a denomination in 
distinction from those which are such in fact. 
This pre-eminence in the family of evangelical 
churches gives it not only the vantage ground, 
but also the central position of responsibility in 
the solution of the great problem of Church 
union. This problem is forcing itself to the » 
front. Its solution will be found in that part 
of the great hereafter which is close at hand. 
The Reformed Church will, as usual, perform 
the humble yet important part assigned it by 
the Lord of all. Its peculiar relation to the 
absorbing question can not be overlooked. 
The evangelical mother and grandmother of 
such a large and scattered ecclesiastical progeny 
would probably be justified in extending an 
invitation to all the children to arrange for a 
family reunion under the roof of the old family 
mansion. 



152 



The Reformed Church. 



This, then, is the relation of the Reformed 
Church to others in the matter of fraternization 
and Christian unity. It is most heartily in 
favor of union as fast as the indications of Prov- 
idence are made obvious to the eve of intelli- 
gent faith, and as far as such union would 
accelerate the proper progress of Christ's 
kingdom in the world. To this end and in this 
blessed hope the most friendly greetings are 
extended to all. Let brotherly love continue. 
In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; 
in all things, charity. With this sentiment of 
amity inscribed upon its banner, the Reformed 
Church will, in the meantime, not cease its 
advocacy and defense of the principles for 
which it first raised the battle-cry against the 
papal powers of darkness. It will continue to 
hold aloft the Apostles Creed as the best form- 
ula of Scriptural teaching ever produced by the 
combined piety and wisdom of Christendom. 
This venerable symbol of faith is offered as a 
basis sufficiently historic, positive and broad for 
the only union that would help to chase the 
shadows of sectarian night from the earth, and 
hasten the dawn of the millennial day. Even 
so, come, Lord, Jesus. 



Prayets. 



153 



PRAYERS FOR THE FAMILY. 

As family worship is observed in every truly 
pious household of the Reformed Church, and 
as some are benefitted by the help afforded in 
the use of sound words, the following prayers 
from the Directory of Worship are here given, 
and their use recommended in connection with 
the reading of a portion of Scripture: 

S JJNDA Y MORNING. 

Lord, our heavenly Father, we thank thee for the 
rest of the past night and for the light of this holy day. 
Lift upon us, we beseech thee, the light of thy coun- 
tenance, and be gracious unto us. We are not worthy 
of the least of thy favors, for we have sinned against 
thee in thought, word and deed. We pray for pardon 
through the infinite merits of our Lord and Savior. 
Cleanse us from all our guilt, and give us the spirit of 
adoption whereby we may call thee, Abba, Father. 

Help us, on this day of sacred rest, to lift up our 
hearts unto thee, who art the source of all light and life. 
As thou hast given us to have part in the resurrection of 
our Lord, help us to seek those things that are above. 
Deliver us from the spirit of worldliness, and suffer us 
not to seek our portion in this life. Fill our hearts with 
love to thee, and charity towards our fellowmen. Pre- 
pare us, by thy Holy Spirit, for the worship of the 
sanctuary, and enable us to join with thy people in 
offering to thee a sacrifice of thanksgiving and praise. 
Bless us as a family now gathered around the mercy 
seat. Bind us together in the spirit of love, and 
strengthen us to perform our duties faithfully to thee 
and to one another. Make us patient under all our 

(ii) 



154 



The Reformed Church. 



trials. Guide us in the narrow way that leadeth unto 
everlasting life, and bring us at last into thy heavenly 
kingdom to dwell with thee for evermore. 

Let thy blessing rest, this day, upon thy Church 
throughout the. world. Eegard in special mercy all 
who meet in thy holy courts. Manifest thyself unto 
thy people as thou doest not unto the world. Give 
unto them peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. Draw 
unto thee, through the preaching of thy Word, those 
who are still out of the ark of safetv, and mav many be 
born into the kingdom of thy dear Son our Lord. 
Incline the hearts of men everywhere to receive thy 
holv Word. Send forth thv light and thv truth to the 
ends of the earth. Bless the ministrations of all mis- 
sionaries in the destitute portions of this land and in 
heathen lands, and bring in the joyous time when all na- 
tions and kindreds and tongues shall come into thy fold. 

thou merciful and gracious God, whose tender mer- 
cies are over all thy works, remember the children of 
affliction and sorrow. Support the needy and oppressed ; 
protect and cheer the destitute widow and orphan; 
restore the sick; prepare the dying for death; sanctify 
the merciful chastisements of thy hand to all who are 
enduring them, and cause that their afflictions may pro- 
mote their spiritual and eternal good. 

"We pray for our kindred and friends, that thou 
wouldest mercifully watch over them, keep them from 
evil, lead them in the way of righteousness, and prepare 
them for an inheritance in thv heavenly kingdom. 

Hear us, our heavenly Father, in these our humble 
petitions, and grant unto us all things that we Tteed, for 
body and soul, for time and eternity, for the sake of our 
Lord and Savior, who has taught us to pray : 

Our Father who art in heaven, &c. Amen. 



Prayers. 



iS5 



SUNDAY EVENING. 

Most merciful and gracious God, our heavenly Father, 
we come into thy presence through the mediation of our 
great High Priest, and in his name offer unto thee our 
evening tribute of thanksgiving and praise. We thank 
thee for all thy favors and blessings bestowed upon us 
and upon all men. Especially do we thank thee for the 
blessings we have received from thy hand during this 
holy day. Thou hast not only supplied our bodily 
wants, but thou hast given unto us the bread of life. 
We thank thee for the glorious gospel of thy dear Son 
which we have heard, and for the precious hopes with 
which thou hast inspired us through thy holy Word. 
Help us to look unto Jesus Christ as our only Savior 
from sin and death, and to put our whole trust in thee. 
Enlighten us more and more by the truth as it is in 
Jesus. Give us an abiding sense of thy goodness, and a 
childlike confidence in thy love and mercy. Keep us 
from wandering from thy paths, and lead us in the way 
of life. Defend us from all the assaults of our enemies, 
and deliver us from all our sins. We acknowledge and 
confess our sin and guilt ; grant us thy pardon for the 
sake of our Lord Jesus Christ. Purify us by thy grace, 
and help 'us to consecrate ourselves anew to thy holy 
service. May we seek clay by day to glorify thee in our 
bodies and spirits, which are thine. 

We pray that thy blessing may rest upon the means 
of grace, upon the preaching of thy Word and the 
administration of thy holy sacraments. Build up thy 
people in their most holy faith. Have mercy upon 
those who know thee not. Draw them unto thyself, 
and deliver them from the bondage of sin. Gather 
them into thy fold, where they shall be free from the 
power of the evil one. Especially do thou have pity 



156 



The Re formed Church. 



upon all who are in suffering and sorrow. Be a father 
to the fatherless, a friend to the friendless, support and 
comfort the sick, and prepare the dying for death. 

Bless the rulers of our land and nation, the President 
of the United States, the Governor of this Common- 
wealth, and all who are in authority over us; and cause 
that justice and truth may abound among us, and that 
all evil be overcome and destroyed. Save and deliver 
our nation from infidelity and vice, and establish us 
among the nations of the earth for thy honor and glory, 
through the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

We now commit ourselves into thy hands for this 
night. May thy protection be over us as we lie in 
defenseless sleep, and give unto us refreshing repose, so 
that we may be refreshed and strengthened for the 
labors and duties of the coming week. And when we 
come to the evening of life, and the shades of death 
gather around us, be thou our strength and support, 
and receive our spirits into thy rest. And whatever 
else we need we would express unto thee in the words 
which our Savior has taught us : 

Our Father who art in heaven, <kc. Amen. 



WEEK DA Y MORXIXG. 

Merciful and gracious God, our heavenly Father, we 
bow down before thee, and worship thee, the only true 
and living God. We thank thee for the rest of the past 
night. Help us to remember how many have passed its 
hours in suffering and sorrow, whilst thou hast granted 
unto us a comfortable and refreshing repose. And now 
as we enter upon the care and toil oj another day, we 
invoke thy blessing upon us. Help us to embrace with 
a believing heart all the sufferings and death of Christ, 



Prayers. 



157 



whereby we may obtain the forgiveness of our sins, and 
be united to thee by thy Holy Spirit. Give us strength 
to crucify the flesh with the affections and lusts thereof, 
so that sin may no more have dominion over us. Grant 
us grace to offer ourselves unto thee a sacrifice of 
thanksgiving and praise, in body and in soul, in this life, 
and to obtain in the world to come life everlasting. 

Defend us, Lord, this day, from all motions of sin in 
our hearts, and from all hurtful influences from the 
world and evil spirits. Be near to us in the hour of 
temptation, and sustain us by thy conquering power. 
May we be thankful in prosperity and patient in adver- 
sity, and trust in thy love and mercy for all future good. 
Grant us grace to be just and upright in all our dealings ; 
quiet and peaceable among our neighbors ; full of com- 
passion towards the needy and afflicted ; and ever ready 
to do good to all men. 

We pray for thy blessing upon our fellowmen. Pro- 
tect and defend thy people from all evil, and enable 
them to walk before thee in the way of thy command- 
ments. May the impenitent be brought to repentance 
by thy goodness, and by thy grace be led to believe in 
the Lord Jesus Christ. Add to the number of thv faith- 
ful worshipers, and extend thy kingdom over all the 
earth. Bless our friends and relatives. Watch over and 
keep them from all harm and danger, and lead them in 
the way of righteousness and peace. 

O Lord, our prayers are now before thee. Wherein 
we fail in asking do thou not fail in giving, but gra- 
ciously supply us with all needed blessings, seeing that 
we ask in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom, 
with thee, the father, and the Holy Ghost, be all honor 
and glory, forever and ever. 

Our Father, who art in heaven, &c. Arnen. 



1 5 8 



The Reformed Church. 



WEEK DAY EVENING. 

Lord, our Father in heaven, we thy children once 
more approach the mercy seat to offer up our tribute of 
thanksgiving and praise. Accept our evening sacrifice, 
and pour out upon us the fullness of thy grace. For thy 
care of us this day we give thee heartv thanks. Mav 
thy goodness, as it is dispensed to us from day to day, 
lead us to repentance for our sins, and help us to con- 
secrate ourselves anew this night to thv holv service. 

holy Savior, we bless thee for what thou hast done 
for our salvation. "We praise thee for thy humiliation, 
and for thy death upon the cross to redeem us from sin 
and death. We bless thee for thy triumphant resur- 
rection, for thy glorious ascension into heaven, and for 
thine intercession before the Father, as our Advocate 
and Mediator. 

Let the same mind be in us, Lord, which was in 
thee, that we may follow thee in thy humility ; bear 
reproach meekly as thou didst bear it ; and forgive our 
enemies, as thou forgavest thy murderers. Help us to 
live to thee, and when we die may we die in thee, com- 
mending our souls into the hands of our heavenly 
Father, with the full assurance of being raised up at the 
last day in thine own glorious image. 

Lord, our gracious Redeemer, we now commit our- 
selves into thy hands. Be with us when we lie down, 
and when we rise up; be with us in sickness and in 
health ; and when we come to the close of our pilgrim- 
age upon earth, and our labors here are at an endj 
receive us with all thy saints in glory everlasting; and 
all the glory shall be given to thee, who, with the Father 
and the Holy Ghost, art alone worthy of praise and 
glory, forever and ever. Amen. 



Prayers. 



159 



A PRA YER FOR THE SICK. 

Lord God, in whose hand is the soul of every living 
thing, and the breath of all mankind; regard with ten- 
der compassion this thy servant, whom it hath pleased 
thee to visit with bodily affliction and disease. Be 
graciously near to him in the hour of his need. Grant 
unto him, we beseech thee, true repentance for all his 
sins, a firm and steady trust in the merits of thy Son, 
Jesus Christ, and grace to be in perfect charity with all 
men. Enable him to cast all his cares upon thee, and to 
yield himself with childlike submission to thy righteous 
will. 

God of all power and grace, bless, we entreat thee, the 
means used for his recovery, rebuke the violence of 
disease, and raise him up from his bed of pain, that 
being delivered by thy compassion he may walk before 
thee in newness of life. But if, most wise and merci- 
ful Father, this sickness should be unto death, grant 
him, we humbly implore thee, a comfortable release 
from all his sufferings. Let the arms of thine everlast- 
ing love be around him, and, when flesh and heart shall 
fail, be thou the strength of his heart and his portion for 
evermore : through the mediation and merits of thy Son, 
Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. 



A PRA YER FOR A SICK CHILD. 

Almighty God and merciful Father, to whom alone 
belong the issues of life and death ; look down from 
heaven, we humbly beseech thee, with the eyes of 
mercy upon this child, now lying upon the bed of 
sickness. Visit him, Lord, with thy salvation, deliver 
him in thy good appointed time from his bodil} r pain, 
and save his soul for thy mercies' sake ; that if it shall 



i6o 



The Reformed Church, 



be thy pleasure to prolong his days here on earth, he 
inav live to thee, and be an instrument of thy glorv, bv 
serving thee faithfully, and doing good in his genera- 
tion ; or else receive him into those heavenly habita- 
tions, where the souls of those who sleep in the Lord 
Jesus, enjoy perpetual rest and felicity. Grant this, 
Lord, for thy mercies' sake, in the name of thy Son, our 
Lord Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee 
and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. 
Amen. 



PRAYER FOR A DEPARTING SOUL. 

Almighty God, with whom do live the spirits of just 
men made perfect, we humbly commend our departing 
brother into thy hands, as into the hands of a faithful 
Creator and most merciful Savior ; beseeching thee that 
his soul may be precious in thy sight. Wash him, we 
pray thee, in the blood of that immaculate Lamb that 
was slain to take away the sins of the world ; that what- 
soever defilements he may have contracted in the midst 
of this miserable and wicked world, through the lusts of 
the flesh or the wiles of Satan, being purged and done 
away, he may be presented pure and without spot before 
thee. Vouchsafe to him a quiet passage, and guide him 
through the valley of the shadow of death. Place him 
in the habitations of light and peace, in the company of 
thy saints and faithful people who are gone before ; and 
in the resurrection of the just do thou make him par- 
taker of the heavenly inheritance ; there to reign with 
thy holy apostles, with the goodly company of prophets 
and martyrs, and with ail thy saints, in glory and bless- 
edness, forever and ever. Amen. 



Forms of Constitutions. 1 6 1 

FORMS. 

The following forms are found in the Consti- 
tution and printed minutes. Their use has 
been authorized by the Church: 

FORM OF A PETITION TO ORGANIZE A CON- 
GREG A TION. 

We, whose names are hereunto affixed, desiring to 
enjoy the holy ordinances of the Christian Church, do 

hereby petition ' the Classis of to constitute 

us a congregation under the name of 

congregation in the township (town or city) of 

County of and State of —, and declare 

our readiness to be governed by the Constitution of the 
Reformed Church in the United States. 

(Date.) [Signed by.] 



CALL TO A MINISTER. 

To the Rev. A G . 

At an election for pastor held in the congrega- 
tion (charge) on the day of , A. D., , you 

were duly elected to that office ; and in accordance with 
the instructions given us, we, the elders and deacons of 
the aforesaid congregation (charge), do hereby unite in 
solemnly calling you to the pastoral office as above men- 
tioned, and affectionately urge upon you the acceptance 
of our call. The duties which will be required of you 
are those which usually belong to the pastoral office, 
and are specifically set forth in the Constitution of the 
Reformed Church in the United States. 

To encourage you in the discharge of the duties of 
your important office, we promise you, in the name of 



l62 



The Reformed Church. 



the congregation (charge), all proper attention, love and 
obedience in the Lord; and in consideration of your 
services, and that you may be relieved of temporal cares, 
as far as possible, we do obligate ourselves in their 
behalf, to pay you for your support, the annual sum of 

dollars in payments, so long as you shall 

continue our pastor, together with the use of [the par- 
sonage belonging to the said congregation (charge),] a 
house which shall be provided for the accommodation of 
yourself and family. 

In witness of the above transaction and obligation, we 

do hereunto subscribe our names, this day of 

, in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight 

hundred and . 

,1 ,) 

, \ Elders. , [ Deacons. 



Constitution of a Church. 

DIRECTIONS. 

It shall be previously announced that the members of 
the congregation will meet at a designated time for the 
purpose of adopting a Constitution and By-Laws for the 
government of the Church. At the meeting the minis- 
ter shall preside, and a clerk shall keep a true record of 
the proceedings, and the Constitution as adopted shall 
be entered into the Church Book, certified to by the 
President and Clerk. 

AETICLE I. 

NAME AND OBJECT. 

Sec. 1. — The name and title of this congregation shall 
be "The Reformed Church of . 



Forms of Constitutions. 



163 



Sec. 2. — Its object shall be to provide its members 
with the preaching of the Word, the administration of 
the Sacraments, and the exercise of Christian Discipline, 
in accordance with the Confession of Faith known as 
the Heidelberg Catechism. 

Sec. 3. — This congregation shall be an organic member 
of the Reformed Church in the United States, and shall 
be governed by its Constitution and Laws. 

ARTICLE II. 

OF THE OFFICERS AND THEIR DUTIES. 

Sec 1. — The officers shall be a pastor, [4] elders, and 
[4] deacons, who shall constitute the Consistory and the 
Board of Trustees. 

Sec. 2. — The duties of the Pastor, Elders, Deacons and 
Trustees shall be such as are laid down in the Constitu- 
tion of the Reformed Church in the United States. 

Sec 3. — The Consistory shall, at its annual meeting, 
or as soon thereafter as possible, elect a treasurer, clerk 
and such other officers as may be necessary. 

Sec 4. — The Consistory shall meet annually on 
[Easter Monday] for the transaction of business, and 
final settlement with the Treasurer and other officers; 

and [quarterly or monthly] on ; and at such other 

times as may be necessary. 

Sec 5. — The members of the Consistory shall consti- 
tute the Board of Trustees, and shall have the manage- 
ment of all the property of the congregation, real, 
personal and mixed, in accordance with the provisions 
of the Constitution of the Reformed Church in the 
United States. 



164 



The Reformed Church, 



ARTICLE III. 

OF ELECTIONS. 

Sec. 1. — Every member in good standing (and who 
has contributed to the support of the congregation, 
according to his ability, during the year preceding the 
election) shall be entitled to vote at all elections. 

Sec. 2. — An election shall be held for pastor whenever 
the Consistory shall nominate one and appoint a meet- 
ing for the purpose ( according to the Constitution of the 
Joint Consistory of the charge). At this election, a 
president, clerk and three judges of election shall be 
appointed who shall certify the result to the Clerk of the 
Consistory. Everv minister who mav be elected must, 
before he can be installed or inducted into office, be a 
minister in good standing in the Classis to which the 
congregation belongs. 

Sec. 3.— An election for [2] elders and [2] deacons 
shall be held annually on -Easter Monday,) and those 
thus chosen shall serve two years, or until their suc- 
cessors are chosen and installed. 

Sec. 4. — Nominations for the offices of elder and 
deacon shall be made by the consistory ; two names pre- 
sented for each officer to be elected. Public notice of 
the nomination shall be given from the pulpit, at least 
one week before the election. At the meeting for the 
election, one additional name for each officer to be 
elected may be put in nomination, three communicant 
members of the congregation requesting it. 2so person 
shall be voted for. not regularly nominated. All nom- 
inees must be in full communion with the Church, and 
earnestly devoted to the cause of Christ. 



Forms of Constitutions, 



165 



Sec. 5. — In case of vacancies by death, removal, or 
otherwise, the Consistory can, if so minded, appoint a 
day for a special election to fill the vacancy. 

ARTICLE IV. 

OF MEMBERS AXD THEIR DUTIES. 

Sec. 1. — Every person is a member of this congrega- 
tion who has been duly received into connection with it 
by confirmation, by letter, or by renewal of profession, 
according to the mode prescribed by the Constitution of 
the Reformed Church in the United States. 

Sec 2. — Every member shall strive to promote the 
general welfare of the Church, and especially by a con- 
sistent life and walk, and shall annuallv contribute 
according to his ability towards its support. 

ARTICLE V. 

AMENDMENTS AXD BY-LAWS. 

Sec. 1. — This Constitution, or any part of it, may be 
amended by a vote of two-thirds of the members pres- 
ent, at a meeting called for the purpose, provided that at 
least ten days' notice of the same shall have been given. 



Dismission of a Church-MeiMber. 

The bearer, M , is a communicant mem- 
ber of the Reformed Church at — in good and 

regular standing. As such, is now, at own 

request, dismissed for the purpose of connecting self 

with the Reformed Church at , to whose Christian 

fellowship and confidence is hereby affectionately 

commended ; and when received by it, peculiar 



The Reformed Church, 



relation to this Church shall cease, of which due notice 

must be given to us by the congregation by which 

is received. 

By order of the Consistory.. 

[To be signed by the Pastor or Secretary of the Consistory. ,] 
, A; D., 18—. 



Constitution of the Joint Consistory of a 

Charge. 

DIRECTIONS. 

It shall be publicly announced that the members of 
the different Consistories of the charge shall meet at a 
designated time and place for the adoption of a Consti- 
tution and By-Laws for the government of the charge. 
At this meeting the pastor, or in his absence an elder 
shall preside, and a clerk shall keep a true record of the 
proceedings, and shall certify the Constitution as 
adopted to the different Consistories, who shall cause 
the same to be entered in their respective Church Books. 

FORM. 

Art. 1. — This Association shall be known as "The 

Joint Consistory of Charge, in ," and shall be 

composed of the members of the Consistories of the 
several congregations composing the charge, and be 
subject to the Constitution and Eules of the Eeformed 
Church in the United States. 

Art. 2. — Its object shall be to provide the charge with 
the stated preaching of the gospel, and other means of 
grace, and to attend to whatever relates to the general 
interest of the charge. 



Forms of Constitutions. 



167 



Art. 3. — It shall appoint all necessary officers, such as 
a President, a Clerk, etc., who shall be elected at its 
annual meeting, and serve until their successors are 
elected. 

Art. 4. — The Joint Consistory shall meet annually on 
[the Saturday before Whitsuntide], and as often during 
the year, upon the call of the President, as may* be 
necessary. 

Art. 5. — In case the office of pastor becomes vacant 
by death, resignation, or otherwise, a pastor shall be 
chosen in the following manner : The Joint Consistory, 
as such, or by a committee, may invite ministers to visit 
and preach in the charge. It shall then nominate one 
as a candidate, who shall preach in each congregation, of 
which due notice shall be given, and the balloting shall . 
be for or against the nominee. If a majority of the 
votes in the whole charge be for him, a call shall be 
made out by the Joint Consistory. 

Art. 6. — When a pastor desires to resign, he shall 
hand in his written resignation to the Joint Consistory, 
and ask that body to unite with him in requesting 
classis to dissolve the pastoral relation. The Joint 
Consistory may provisionally accept his resignation, or 
may submit it to the separate congregations for their 
action, and shall do so if requested by six members in 
writing. 

Art. 7. — The support of the pastor shall be distributed 
among the congregations as may from time to time be 
agreed upon in the Joint Consistory. At its annual 
meeting it shall be the duty of the Joint Consistory to 
see that this obligation is punctually discharged. 

Art. 8. — The Joint Consistory may purchase and hold 
in trust, grounds for parsonage and other church pur- 
poses, improve and manage the same ; and whenever 



The Reformed Church. 



any one of the congregations shall become separated 
from the charge by the action of the classis, it shall be 
entitled to an equitable repayment of its share in the 
same, if demanded. 

Art. 9. — The time of the pastor shall be devoted to the 
several congregations in snch ratio as shall from time to 
time be agreed upon by the Joint Consistory and pastor. 

Art. 10. — To the Joint Consistory belongs the duty of 
electing delegates to classis, synods, and other meetings, 
and providing for their traveling expenses and those of 
the pastor. 

Art. 11. — This Constitution can only be altered and 
amended at an annual meeting, and by a vote of two- 
thirds of the members. 

(NOTE.— The Joint Consistory, especially if it holds real estate, 
ought to become an incorporated body.) 



Constitution for a Sunday-School. 

Art. 1. — This school shall be called the Sunday-school 

of . It shall consist of the pastor, the 

officers, the teachers and the scholars. 

Art. 2. — The object of this school shall be, the train- 
ing of its members in Christian character, by means of 
worship and the diligent study of the sacred Scriptures. 

Art. 3. — The superintendent shall be appointed by 
the Consistory, (or elected by the teachers). The other 
officers shall be elected by the school annually. The 
teachers shall be appointed by the superintendent, with 
the concurrence of the pastor. 

Art. 4. — This school shall be under the supervision of 
a Sunday-school Board, consisting of the pastor, the 
consistory, the officers and teachers of the school. 

Art. 5. — Regular meetings of this board shall be held 



Forms of Constitutions. 



169 



quarterly, on , for the transaction of such 

business as relates to the interests of the school, at 
which the following order shall be observed: 1. Sing- 
ing and Prayer; 2. Calling the Roll; 3. Reading the 
Minutes; 4. Unfinished Business; 5. Reports from 
Committees ; 6. Report from Superintendent ; 7. Report 
from the Treasurer; 8. Report from the Librarian; 9. 
Reports from the Teachers ; 10. Miscellaneous. 

Art. 6. — Special meetings of the board may be called 
by the pastor, or by the superintendent, or by any three 
of the members. 

Art. 7. — This Constitution may be altered or amended 
by the board, provided that the changes be proposed in 
writing at one meeting and acted upon at a subsequent 
meeting. 

Constitution for Woman's Missionary 

Society. 

ARTICLE I. 

This Society shall be called the "Woman's Missionary 
Society'' of the Reformed Church of . 

ARTICLE II. 

The object of this Society shall be to arouse the inter- 
est and unite the efforts of the women of the congrega- 
tion in missionary work. 

ARTICLE III. 

The members of this Society shall consist of such 
women of the congregation as are willing to pay a 

monthly fee of not less than [See Note.] 

(12) 



I/O 



The Reformed Church. 



AETICLE IV. 

The officers of this Society shall be, President, Vice- 
president, Recording and Corresponding Secretaries and 
Treasurer ; these officers, together with the pastor, shall 
constitute an Executive Committee. 

ARTICLE V. : % 

The President or Vice-president shall preside at all 
meetings of the Society. 

The Recording Secretary shall keep a complete roll of 
the members of the Society and a careful record of its 
proceedings. 

The Corresponding Secretary shall give notice of all 
meetings and have charge of the correspondence of the 
Societv. 

The Treasurer shall have charge of the finances of the 
Society, both as to receiving and disbursing, and shall 
make a monthly report of the same, and a complete 
annual report. She shall pay only such orders as are 
signed by the President. 

It shall be the duty of the Executive Committee to 
prepare programs tor meetings, and to devise ways and 
means of arousing interest and raising money. It shall 
communicate, through the Corresponding Secretary, 
with other missionary societies in order to exchange 
views and experiences and thus increase their knowledge 
and improve their methods of work. 

ARTICLE VI. 

The meetings shall be held the of the month at 

, and shall be opened and closed with devotional 

exercises. 

ARTICLE VII. 
The officers shall be elected annually by ballot. 



Forms of Constitutions, 



171 



ARTICLE VIII. 

This Constitution can be amended at any regular 
meeting of the Society, by a vote of two-thirds of the 
members present, notice having been given at a pre- 
vious meeting. 

Note.— In some instances, as in the country, it may be necessary 
to have the membership include men, wonien, and children. 

In others, it may be better to have no specified fee, but each mem- 
ber be permitted to give according to the dictates of his conscience. 

In all cases, each one should be encouraged to give "as the Lord 
has prospered him." 

It is of course, understood, that this Constitution, as well as the 
one for Mission Bands, is given simply as a suggestive basis for mis- 
sionary organizations. It is expected that each congregation will 
adapt them to its own needs. 

Constitution for Mission Bands. 

ARTTCLE L 

This Society shall be called " The Mission Band " of 
the Reformed Church of . 

ARTICLE II. 

Its object shall be to interest and instruct the children 
in missionary work, and raise funds for the same. 

ARTICLE III. 

The membership of this Society shall consist of the 
children and youth of the congregation, and others who 
may be deemed worthy of membership. 

ARTICLE IV. 

The officers of this Band shall be President, Vice- 
president, Secretary and Treasurer. There shall also be 
a Visiting Committee, to be appointed monthly. 



172 



The Reformed Church, 



ARTICLE V. 

The President or Vice-president shall preside at all 
meetings of the Society. 

The Secretary shall keep a roll of the members and a 
careful record of the proceedings. 

The Treasurer shall take charge of the funds and 
make a monthly report of the same. 

The Treasurer shall disburse them according to the 
vote of the Society, and with the consent of the pastor. 

The Visiting Committee shall visit all the children of 
the congregation and others, and invite them to become 
members. This committee shall also do the errands of 
the Society. 

ARTICLE VI. 

The meetings of the Band shall be held on the 

of the month, at the church, unless otherwise desig- 
nated, and shall be opened and closed with devotional 
exercises. 

ARTICLE VII. 

The election of officers shall take place semi-annually 
(or quarterly,) at one of the regular meetings of the Band. 

ARTICLE VIII. 

The Constitution can be amended at any regular 
meeting of the Society, by a two-thirds vote of the mem- 
bers present, provided notice has been given at a 
previous meeting. 

ARTICLE IX. 

This Band shall be under the control of one or more 
of the older members of the Church, who shall be 
appointed by the consistory. 



1 




§ 

using the Bookkeeper process, g 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: May 2006 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION B 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 



